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Discogged here:
Jazz arranger, composer, orchestrator, conductor, band leader based in Los Angeles, CA.
This was a pleasant surprise, requested by a commenter just recently. An artist I knew nothing about, and oddly enough he put out quite a few releases back in the day, you can see he averaged almost one yearly from the first one in 1973. Some of the LPs are missing online digitally and surely I'll see if I can hunt them down to see if there are gems on there. However, the beginning was a little inauspicious (from our fusionary perspective that is) because his oeuvre starts with mostly straight jazz in the big band style, with a tiny bit of creative electricity. For ex., from the debut, the track called Diana which in my opinion is the best one, so don't get too excited on the strength of this one:
The 1978 album called Elusion though is really something, there is quite the awakening of fusionary instincts as you can tell from the track itself called that, Awakening:
Really impressive album straight through.
From 1983's Realworld, Gentle Thoughts:
Obviously, getting into the 80s here, we can expect -- you know what we can expect.
I'll try getting more and coming back with those later.
From discogs:
American pianist, composer and keyboardist, died 7 October 2007.
This was requested and I didn't have much to go on other than the Mt. Vernon composition from the Praise Poems series, which admittedly was wonderful. His first LP from 1979 though is mostly solo piano, which definitely gets a little boring at times. The first two tracks achieve a bit of library feel to them with the more filled out arrangements, as in the first:
Notice the appearance of Joplin's horrific The Entertainer piano piece, made famous at the time by that Robert Redford movie that was big in the 70s. Amazingly, he manages to ruin an already monstrous piece, with boogie-woogie stylings, to make it even more blood-curdling. The second side is all solo piano, partly improvised.
I posted the later album Sunday Palaver, here. To repeat quickly, Swiss Peter Giger was the drummer for the formidable early kraut fusion band Dzyan, that still blows me away when I listen to it today. Other than the first Giger/Lenz/Marron album Beyond, from 1976, the remainder of his material disappoints me. Family of Percussion was founded by Trilok Gurtu and made a bunch of LPs too, but on his own Giger made an album with the same name in 1976 which is the one posted here. So I guess technically this album is not a part of the band FoP's discography at all.
First track called Mistral gives you an indication of this, mostly percussion, some improvisations, not much actual music therefore:
Information here. Soda Creek Ferry is by Ted Ritchie and Friends, year unknown, who put out only one little single but boy is this composition a gem:
Not only is it well performed, with beautiful guitarwork and the addition of that lovely background flute, but the lyrics are well worth paying close attention to, back from a distant time long ago (half a century) when there were still such simple things: 'Billy really knew the river bed,' the ferry doesn't charge, it's broken down and gives him no food, but god bless it, if only there were still simple honest experiences left like that in the world today 50 years later, but how could there be with double or triple the population of the world weighing it down and the triumph of capitalism everywhere to be superseded by the coming Age of Kings, of Right-Wings, the Age of Billionaires, which will likely throw the rest of us all back into some kind of inferior medieval existence.
Note the incredibly lovely end: "if you are ever want to come along, we can add your river to my new song."
Al Walton Trio's 1982 single, called Al's Thing:
Information here. His track called appeared on Praise Poems 4, recall. Unfortunately most of the remainder of this LP is bluegrass and country style.
Another lovely song called In My Prime:
Information here. Less on this one compared to its predecessors.
Goodbye Rainbow, by Michael Dues, a rare case where an LP release actually exists:
A one-off from this German group that came out in 1982. The title track gives you an idea of what to expect, very light fusion if so it can be called, with a mixture of jazzy styles:
