Landress / Hart Group with Dancing Moments, 1981

The only LP they made, of course, this was briefly reviewed already in the old CD reissue wishlist days-- boy has there been an accumulation of masterpieces since Tom shut down and abandoned that site 2 or more years ago like an old coal mine! Does he know? Does he still follow the new mines of gems we've found?  I doubt it, he would have to reopen the CD wishlist and upload some new spreadsheet lists to Santa Claus care of North Pole:

To be honest, like the Projections album listed a couple of days ago, this light fusion album isn't something I would normally publish separately. However, there is scant info on the internet about it, so now there is at least one entry for the album. This might be a good time to remind everyone that obscure does not necessarily mean rare & expensive. For example, the photo provided here came from an expired ebay auction. The final price? $5. Of course, it only takes two people who want something really bad, to get top dollar on ebay.  According to whatever data I could find, Landress / Hart were a Los Angeles based jazz fusion duo (though a full 4 piece group), one on guitar and the other on keyboards. The latter is the usual smattering of period synthesizers and Rhodes piano. It's all rather pleasant, and played to perfection. Mrs. CDRWL joined me for this listening session and thought it to be a very nice instrumental album as well. These guys were definitely pros who deserved more recognition. Recommended for fusion fans.

Incidentally, Mrs. Progressreviews, when she does join me for listening sessions-- a rarity indeed given she spends so much excess time on her 3 jobs (none of which involves homemaking or housework incidentally)-- usually makes the remark "this sounds like every other album you've ever played for me--" followed by the inevitable, "are you sure you're not just collecting the same album over and over again???" and sure enough, that's a pretty good (amateur) review of this LP, so when I explain this is actually a new album so rare I was told not to share it with anyone she usually answers, "don't you have enough records already?" and as I'm trying to find the right answer to that question which does contain some valid points of argument, she'll throw in the classic "when are you going to give up this crazy hobby finally?"  and as I'm about to explain that this is not likely anytime soon, I hear: "at least take off those stupid headphones you can't even hear your kids yelling for you in the basement!" and of course, activating some parental guilt centre deep inside the "reptilian brain" I am forced to stop listening to the collection of music at that point and attend to some screaming kid fighting over his collection of toys...

In fact it's very similar, as the amateur fan will remark, to all those other US light fusion (but not fuzak!) albums I've posted before like Bellvista's great The Painter and Chateau Breakers and the fabulous Franklin Street Arterial album (posted as a comment somewhere or another, can't remember where). In terms of sheer complexity and originality it's not quite at the level of Franklin Street, or my other big fave Clareon, in terms of dynamism not approaching Spaces Border Station, but I love its pleasantness, and as he said, the superb playing.  Tom himself was very amused by the fact that he found a copy on ebay for a few dollars, before posting his review, but that after some years of (over)hype it was selling in the hundreds.  I guess people caught up with reality eventually (as they will with the climate change situation) and now you can buy a copy for only 100 USD, a bit more appropriately I think.

The wonderfully titled Space Kookie gives you a good idea of why my wife thought the album sounds the same as everything I've ever played:





I guess the repetition of all the music we collect here is almost as bad as the repetition of all her jokes.  But I don't dare tell her that, for obvious reasons.  And I'll surely be in a lot of trouble if she reads today's post, which is as unlikely as the raccoon living in my garage jumping on board the next virgin galactic space flight.