Rollsplytt's Flappergranny, 1982 and Happy New Year 2021!

 

A one-off private pressing from this German band with all instrumental, lighter styled fusion including some funky, slight reggae elements, enjoyable in parts nonetheless, recommended by a commenter.  We've heard so much of this type of music before, based on the older fusion of the seventies but brought down to a more commercial, lighter level, despite the typical trappings of synthesizer and electric guitar.  

The track called Hand auf Herz, Mon Ami changes nicely from a slower emotional opening to uptempo crunchy electric guitar:

Roger Nichols in the ultrarare Santa Monica Centennial Stairway '75

 

I'm going post this just in case someone comes along this page and is curious to know what this is all about.  It's definitely super rare and cost me an arm and a leg and more to purchase.  I thought it just might be like some other brilliant overlooked funky fusion mid-70s albums since really there was nothing to go by online but it turns out that the first three sides are orchestral composed music in a variety of styles some of which are silly or downright annoying, while the last side which featured the great Roger Nichols is a rehash of the old songs he made with Roger Williams, great as those songs were, and exemplary of the decade.

It's databased here. The description:

Concert in honor of Santa Monica's One hundredth Birthday. Thursday, March 13 and Friday, March 14, 7:30 p.m. Santa Monica Civic Auditorium

The actual record is marred by the fact the beginnings of both sides a and b are horribly warped and can't be played for the first five minutes, though you might be convinced this isn't so bad as it sounds when you hear the music.

One of the tracks with Roger Nichols from side d:

Anyhow I post this in case someone else out there is curious about this rarity and would like to purchase it not knowing the contents.

Fez, 1978 by request

 

Info here. Avant-garde, free jazz.

Chikara Ueda and The Power Station in several albums 1978 to 1982

Smooth and funky fusion all instrumental along the lines of Yamashita but of course without the vocals he made a slew of albums in the late seventies to the early eighties period some of which might be too smooth for our tastes.

From Cara de Piedra, the track called Silhouette d'Amour :

Included are Flying Easy (1980) Sunlight Whisper (1981), Mr. (1981) [INC], Herdland (1981) and Cara de Piedra (1982):

Lizard's Bad Companions

 

Sadly a one-off from this wonderful group that made a kind of hard proto-prog like Tucky Buzzard, the description is quite complete on discogs:

Michael (Mick) Tulk had previously played guitar with British freak-beat band THE UNTAMED during the mid-1960s. Greg Hill, Dave Conners and Rob Souter had previously been members of the Sydney-based WHITE WINE, although none of them actually played on the band’s “Overflow” LP (Festival 1970). Mick Tulk and Dave Conners also appeared on GULLIVER SMITH’s “The Band's Alright But the Singer Is…” LP (Reprise 1973). Dave Conners also performed on the following LPs: JADE WARRIOR “Released” (Vertigo 1971) and GRAHAM PARKER & THE RUMOUR’s “Howlin’ Wind” (1976). Rob Souter was drummer for the DYNAMIC HEPNOTICS (1980-86). LIZARD split up in early 1973 after having laid down several tracks at EMI Studios (Sydney) during December 1972. These tracks eventually appeared on the band’s “Rosalyn” b/w “Cecil” single (released 7 June 1973), and “Bad Companions” LP (released July 1973). Initially, the album was slated to appear as “Starve the Lizards” (imagine that!), but this was replaced by the “Bad Companions” title, possibly in reference to Gulliver Smith’s band name at the time.

The stunning long track called Missing Pages gives you a great idea how enjoyable this can be:

Fantasia Cromatica's one-off

 

An excellent review that starts like this:

With a name taken from both Bach's chamber tradition and Jaco Pastorius' repertoire, Argentinean ensemble Fantasía Cromática brings a refreshing stance for contemporary jazz-rock. The band shows clear, undeniable evidence of the influences absorbed from Pastorius-era Weather Report, Return to Forever, Yellow Jackets and Brand-X, with some soft hints to symphonic rock in places. The album kicks off with the vigorous 'El Proceso de la Lluvia', which sets a proper mood of joie de vivre in the listener's mind. The track is set on a controlled basis, obvious in the harmonic fashion in which the guitar, sax and synth solos succeed each other; he middle section is much slower, which gives way to vocative ambiences (including a very Gilmour-esque guitar solo). 'Un Gesto Memorioso' begins with on a reflective tone with the sax assuming the starring role - once things shift to a more intrepid mood, the guitar and the bass display a mutually defiant homage to Holdsworth and Berlin in a tasteful use of pyrotechnics. 'Ascesis del Sol' is the longest and most solemn track in the album: this makes sense with the important presence that the keyboard layers bear during the elaboration of the track's main atmospheres: the sax and piano solos are relevant, but again, this band likes to keep things under control, so the potential storm of virtuosity is always obedient to some sort of constraint, always giving major preference to the global sound. The bass ornaments featured in some passages also help to sustain the overall mood...

You can tell from its posting here that we're dealing with a throwback to the seventies greats, so much so that there really is no indication this wasn't recorded back in that glorious heyday of progressive fusion. 

The so-called solemn track with its highly evocative transcendent (and original!) chord changes, Ascesis del Sol:

Oddly I don't find a database entry in discogs to see if there's more from them.

WDR Big Band

From discogs:

Big band of large public German radio / TV broadcasting station Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR), based in Köln (Cologne).

Since 2016 Bob Mintzer is the chief conductor and Vince Mendoza is composer in residence and conductor.

The band popped up, somewhat anonymously, in the previous post here with Airto Moreira's Brazilian Mass. In this collection, thanks to the contributor who put it together btw, they feature quite a lot of mixed classical and big band composition along the lines of my old favourite track Jacob's Tailor. 

The classical introduction to Die Erde [The World] almost brings me to tears:

There are several outstanding similar compositions in the collection, some with classical styled vocals.

The discography is enormous too and it's impossible for me to discern what might be of value in there.

Ali Neander and Helmutt Hattler

 

Again quite the remarkable mix of guitar fusion and composed, well-thought-out passages similar to the classic style of the 70s as in albums by Toto Blanke or Akkerman although there are tracks that import the metalish stylings from the 2000's or even electronic repetitionary elements.  The discography is here.

A composition cowritten and coplayed, interestingly, with the great Paul McCandless, called Winterlude:

For a more uptempo fusiony track consider the opener, Seventh Sense:

Later in 2014 the team came up with another CD called "This one goes to eleven" referencing Spinal Tap, also featuring McCandless, despite the title there is no heavy metal in there but more of the guitar-based fusion from 2010, while in the 2012 acoustic guitar outing with Tilmann Hohn, the laidback and more sedative slower side of 2010 is featured as if that album was split into two distinct personalities. I guess there is also some resemblance to the Muck Groh albums with Grotesk, which are strongly recommended to all.

But overall, you could say the most influence perhaps is from the great Toto.

Kadans (Cadence) aka The Moscow Chamber Jazz Ensemble

 

From discogs:

Cadence was a Soviet chamber jazz ensemble, established in 1978 by German Lukyanov. The band had been performing Lukyanov's original compositions and heavily re-arranged jazz standards. Cadence toured around the USSR extensively and participated in a few foreign festivals, including Nord Sea Jazz (1984) in Hague and Jazz Jamboree Festival in Poland. Most musicians played multiple instruments, so the small group of six people had a timbre and expressive variety of a big-band. Lukyanov used complicated rhythmic patterns, unusual arrangement techniques, chromatics, atonality, dodecaphony. Some critics considered Cadence to be one of the most innovative and advanced Soviet jazz bands of the 1970-80s.

Amazing classical fusion.  From the first album which has the title Ivanushka the Fool, track 3:

From the third album track 2 (translated as What a Snowy Spring) presents an astonishingly emotional fugue composition that builds in wonderful intensity a little like our favourite Russian band Arsenal was so able to do:

Puzzle in two albums

 

 

From discogs::

Chicago-based Brass-Rock/Jazz-Funk band.
Signed with Motown in 1972 and released two albums between 1973-1974.
A third album named "How Do We Get Out Of This Business Alive" was planned for release in late 1974 but was cancelled.
Frontman John LiVigni would later leave the group to pursue a solo career as John Valenti.

And indeed, these guys have a very pleasant Chicago (the band) sound to them, and we all know what that means and implies, but in places they are very similar to Sage posted here this is Italian soul with some nice progressive components.

From the first album track 5, Grosso:

I mean we're not talking Il Sistema here of course, but it's still pleasant to hear for these tired old ears.

From the second album, State of Mind:

Here, the Chicago resemblance is almost eerie, excluding that wonderfully original and progressive intro riff that reappears here and there throughout the composition. Of course I'm assuming most people out there love that band as much as I do.

User (Goetz Steeger) - Kurmuschels Verwandlung (12 Variationen) from 2013

 

Here's a remarkable so-called RIO or perhaps chamber progressive album that I'm sure no one out there has ever heard or heard about, but with superbly well composed music.  The artist in question is Goetz Steeger who is 'hiding' behind the name User for this one-off cd. Confusingly there is also an album by him whose title is User which is different.  In the database this album is listed here.  I have his 2019 album called Ende der Parade which is distinctly inferior, well I should say it's more popular music than this one.

Consider the classical composition Uberwulf mit cello:

The Tarantella:

Then you get an idea of the great composition.

Gunther Fischer Band's amazing Nightkill OST, 1984

Gunther Fischer has been posted here before of course as a result of his backing of Uschi Bruning, and the remarkable fusion album Kombination there as a quintet.  There are other albums hidden in his discography as bandleader or just as solo artist, for example the often requested album with Solo Sunny which is listed here as ST, from 1979, but I think it's a soundtrack.  In the late year of 1984 he made this other OST which is really remarkable with its mix of funk and fusion, the information is here this time under the GF Band. 

For Example track 5, Phoenix: