Praise Poems, Vol. 1

 

Obviously, I encountered this series whilst in hot pursuit for stuff by Geoff Tyus who will be appearing shortly on his own, but one of his compositions appears on this series. I thought I'd listen to it to get an idea of his work, in general, and I was pleased by what I heard. I'm going now to explore the whole series, which is wonderfully done, chiefly because they took a lot of really unknown stuff unbelievably found in the deepest parts of old vinyl crates, sometimes or maybe usually only on EPs or singles, and I guarantee you've never heard of any of these artists just like me, and it offers us avenues to explore in the case where there are LPs left unripped, still to be brought to light. 

Each installment in this 'franchise' (as they say in Hollywood as if it was a junk food place) contains some gems, sometimes not more than a couple which is understandable in any compilation case, but sometimes there's some really standout stuff. Despite the description there is a mixture of traditional jazz songs with vocals (no standards or cover versions, thank god), almost no funk, but quite a bit of soul and folk music too. In general the majority could be described as soul songs with an early but rarely later 70s style.

There is no rock, there is no electric music, just a bit of light fusion here and there. In terms of the latter, the best track from the first installment is Innerflight's Tribute to Ruffian which unfortunately was derived from an EP, there is no LP for this wonderful group to explore further:

Gotta love all the thought that was put into that piece.

The track called Praise Poems from which the series presumably derives its name is truly lovely despite the Bob Dorough like vocalist: