Richard Sussman's Evolution Suite from 2016

 

I posted the Bob Moses-involved album Tributaries from 1978 back here.  Richard Sussman played the piano on that magnificent album, with gorgeous contemporary jazz, but nonetheless inventive compositions.  His own page says:

American jazz bassist, pianist, composer, arranger, and educator, born March 28, 1946 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

To my surprise he was in the protoprog band Elephants Memory, which made a really good debut album back in the late sixties.  Subsequently though if memory serves me correctly, which it usually doesn't anymore, they reverted to basic or commercial rock with nothing progressive.  Looks like he was also briefly in BST which I hope everyone loves as much as me and the Mike Santiago work with Entity, which I posted back here a long time ago (more than a decade ago!), and that one of course is a bone fide masterpiece of US fusion.

Anyways back to this one, which carries on where Tributaries dropped off, with a little more composition, modern classical and atonal, surprisingly, despite appearing almost 30 years later.  Sadly virtually no info on that page but a note inside the package shows the performers' names.

A perfect example is the second movement:

A great point of comparison (if any remember it) is the Moe Koffman Solar Explorations work I posted here, with its 'ideal' trifold mix of classical modern orchestral, big band, and fusion, featuring advanced instrumental compositions, which I still dearly love partly for the fact it's utterly unknown to everyone.  I think on a head to head comparison though the Koffman work is better because of its insane variety, no surprise given the fertile time period from which it emerged fully evolved.

But this too is a beautiful piece of art.  And also completely lost to time.

Tropico (with Chikara Ueda) - Mellow Peanuts, 1978 [by request, limited time FLAC]

 

Info here.  Pretty pedestrian instrumental funky stuff for my taste with nothing much to cling to.  But I am well aware it's incredibly popular and in demand, as it was requested before. I find, especially, the boingy synth melody sound that shows up here and there really hard to swallow.

The best I could come up with is Una Sera di Tokyo with its very Italian soundtracky sound:

The title track is quite representative, rightly or wrongly so:

Request: Elliot Freedman Group - Bands of Merriment, Vol.1, West Coast Quintet Live [by request limited time only]

 

With regards to these guys, discogs says:

Profile:

The Elliot Freedman Group advances a harmonically elegant, compositionally uncompromising, non-canonical adventurous jazz.  “Very, very good avant fusion” Guitar Player magazine

Of course the title of this one is either ironic or ridiculous, you choose.  As described, it's tight fusion with some contemporary jazz elements (eg acoustic jazz piano).  His personal style is very similar to Alan Holdsworth, but I find the sound of the guitar which is somehow passed through a synth (?) quite distracted sometimes with its twangy whistling aspect.  You'll see what I mean when you listen to it.

For ex., the first track, Finding Form For:

Back to Fumitaka Anzai in 1984's Chikkun Takkun

 

I posted Anzai's first from 1982 here, and as mentioned earlier I've always really loved that one.  So I was highly curious to hear this second album-- if it's as interesting as the first one.  Needless to say, we can answer with a partial negative.  But the search is always worth it, given the gems that turn up here and there.  You can also see from the database page, kind of, that there is a mixture of artists doing the tracks here.  Though I did give up, short attention span as is common nowadays, trying to collate which ones are from Anzai and if they're the good ones.

Anyways, the whole sounds very much like a library video game album, with all the tracks a minute or two long.  Some of the better ones do have prog bases to them, for ex. the A 6 which is Stravinskyesque dissonances:

A lot of electronic noodling appears, as on B1:

The libraryish B15:

Phaedrus Triptych 2017 limited time only, requested

This one-off album or rather CD is interesting because it's from Spanish keyboardist / composer Carlos Plaza Vegas, who I've known well for decades from his band called Kotobel -- one of my favorite 'recent' prog bands.  This work is definitely little known, and unfairly so really.  Is there anything fair at all in music, these days, in 2025?  I don't think so, personally.

The track called Dawn definitely sounds like it comes right off a Phaedrus album, it amazes me when I think of all the work and thought that went into this composition, with the originality of it, the freshness of the chords, the sheer creativity of it:

While a track called Perpetual Movement illustrates the classical chamber side of things, like the Japanese TEE just posted:

Stunningly too, all the music from beginning to end is worth listening to carefully, there's not a single weak spot on there!

French After Life - Cauchemar, 1975 [Fresh Vinyl Rip]

 

From discogs:

Wide-ranging French rock band from Lyon (1969-1975). 

A good (critical) review from big prog collector apps on rym:

A French band, mainly singing in English with one and only album, released in Spain!

Strange case this After Life group, who's main figure appears to be French underground composer Jean-Pierre Massiera.  After Life employeed several members in a stint of about 5-7 years with Roddy Julienne playing  the acoustic guitar and singing, Ralph Benatar, Bernard Monerri and René Mémé handling the electric ones, Xavier Dubois as the bassist, Hervé Duclos performing on keyboards and Jose Muñoz responsible for the drumming (apparently a Spanish citizen).  The music comes as a definition of inconsistency, it's all over the place with fading Psychedelic Rock as the basic guiding light, leading to several, different styles, some of which sound completely dated.''Cauchemar'' (1975, Discophon) contain some tracks close to Alice, a bit of Theatrical Rock with standard French drama qualities on the singing parts and a sound somewhere between Psych and Progressive Rock.  Other tracks remind me of Strawbs, a mellow Psych/Art Rock with some folky vibes and soft electric guitars and keyboards throughout, but there are also many dull moments of uninteresting Psychedelic/Blues Rock.Musical extensions do not stop here, several tracks visit some light jazzy qualities and the bass work reveals an evident funky approach, similar to compatriots Nemo.  A sought-after release, ''Cauchemar'' is absolutely confusing of a release with many 60's leftovers (strong use of harmonica, psychedelic overtones, guitar/piano-based grooves) and does not actually meet the value of its fame.  Several Massiera-related works out there are much more interesting, this goes mainly for fans of dated Psychedelic Rock.

It's definitely inconsistent but has some nice moments, at least I've always remembered it that way.  Also note that a mono rip has been circulating online forever, so the (good) music did require upgrading.

The first track with its crashing dramatic chords, called Cauchemar (nightmare), sounds quite insistently like the classic French band Ange:

Le secret de la vieille dame recalls so much I've posted here before, like Le Chien des Dunes, Mor - Stations, etc. etc. and I admit I have a weakness for this kind of rambly French songwriting:

Too bad it's so short!  It's a good composition.

Posology reveals the psych side of the things mentioned above, btw that's a great word, referring to dosages of drugs:

Unfortunately the remainder of the album is, as mentioned, surprisingly generic, bland, and simplistic.

HUR: Hommage a la Musique de Christian Vander, limited time only

 

Info here for this 2 CD set.  Released in 2009 this is a truly stunning compilation of some really unbelievable music, deserving to be placed next to the greatest modern classical music as far as I'm concerned.  Different prog artists contribute and reinterpret these assorted tracks, presumably all Magma originals but I'm not totally sure, which makes it all the more interesting.

From Ain Soph, Cosmos A Fiieh:

From Patrick Gauthier, The Last Seven Minutes:

La Somme des Parties, Rerecorded best of Shylock, limited time only

 

I'm going to do a few French posts, because I really love their prog and found a few new things.

Shylock is one of my all time favorite artists with its gorgeous mix of chamber classical with electric guitar front and center headed of course by Frederic Lepee (who 10 years later created the Philharmonie band), and hailing from the beautiful Riviera city of Nice.

This album from 2016 features rerecorded material which showed up for the most part on their 2 (masterpiece) albums released 1976 and 1978, although I think some appeared as bonus tracks on the musea Cd release.  There are 2 tracks that are for sure new for this one, including La Roche Trouee, a demo:

And another is the Dixieme, note that the 4th to 9th appeared on the other albums (eg. the famed composition Ile de Fievre is the 8th):

The interplay of piano and electric guitar is just ethereally lovely, and equally, so rare to hear nowadays.  But then the way the track changes completely into a dissonant Frippian riff, and again changes into the classical opera-like synth chord patterns augmented with strings, halfway through! Hard to believe.

More folk with Tamburlaine from NZ 1971, 1973

1

A New Zealand folk-rock band.

They made these 2 albums with some lovely compositions.

From the 1971 album Say no More, I can't believe how expressively emotional the Rainy City Memoirs are:

And gotta love the surrealistic artwork on their second album.  The best song in my opinion, Sunny Side:

Sower from USA 1977

 

Complete change in direction for one more, with basic folk countryish stuff.

Databased information is here:

US 1970s folk/psyche/rock act, fronted by Charles Maxwell & Kelly Cargo.

With LP info:

Recorded at Val-West studios, Alb, New Mexico, Aug. 2-11, 1977.

Needless to state, an only child from this band. Instrumental called Smile Back: not  Burnt Norton (first and second sides were mistakenly labeled) with just gorgeous guitarwork (for those curious, this is an eruditic T.S. Eliot reference):

Sixto Rodriguez 1970, 1971

 

Another unknown ssw from the early 1970s with similar music to Sally Eaton, the usual simplistic psych folky songs with suffocating political content plus the chamber and orchestral arrangements (done by a certain Mike Theodore).

Bio:

American singer/songwriter and guitarist, born July 10, 1942, Detroit, Michigan, USA - died August 8, 2023.

Rodriguez released the solo album "Cold Fact" on the Sussex label in 1970. The blues-funk style of his overtly sociopolitical lyrics gained him little popularity in the US, where he once performed onstage with Hispanic activists the Brown Berets. However, his music found a resonance with a fan-base in South Africa, where he became somewhat of a cult legend. He also toured Australia with Midnight Oil during the 1980s.

Rodriguez was also known as "Sixto Rodriguez" and was once a Motown session musician. Works include: "Cold Fact", "Coming From Reality", "After The Fact" & "Sugarman: The Best Of Rodriguez".

Sixto's brother Jesse (aka Jesus Rodriguez (6)) co-wrote songs for Rodríguez' catalogue and repertoire.

Sugar Man, from the first album:

From the 2nd album, the song called It Started Out so Nice grew on me a lot:

After that, he put out a live album in the early 1980s--how unusual is that for a folky?  Did not listen to that one.

Sally Eaton's Farewell American Tour from 1970

The totally unknown Sally Eaton was a:

Singer, actress and priestess, born 1947 in Warren, Pennsylvania, USA.

Lovely!  

As you can very well expect, this is pretty much standard early 70s ssw stuff with the full orchestral arrangements (a trend we can blame George Martin for starting but here done by a George Brackman), lovely, earnest songs with naive lyrics and hippie-like insistences, etc.  

But the song called This time next autumn (presumably composed by her) really grew on me, it could be something you'd hear on an album from the songbirds who got really famous, like Judy Collins, Joan Baez, etc.

Note that the discogs description of the record as 'psych rock' is a bit silly, although by now we have come to expect that term will be applied to just about any kind of music fashioned in that era, and then long after that too.

Another track, called Beads:

That one reminds me of my old favourite, beautiful Nico, of Velvet Underground / Andy Warhol fame.

May she rest in peace.  (She died in a tragic bicycle accident on Ibiza, Balearic Islands, Spain, on 18 July 1988, at 49 years of age.)

Armande Altai's 1979 Atavisme with Joel Dugrenot, by request

 

This album has always been a big favourite of mine, mentioned in connection with Prince Desbouis back here, because it greatly resembles that one with the female vocals (Stella Vander of course in that one) and spacey, extraterrestrial themes.  Here, the music is from zeuhl bassist Joel Dugrenot, a genius of composition who made the amazing, amazing albums See, Boomerang, and Mosaiques, and this one you could add to those as his fourth masterpiece.

With regards to Armande Altai, bio:

French singer, actress and singing teacher, born in 1944 in Aleppo, Syria. She began her career as an avantgarde singer in the early 70's and appeared in musicals and rock operas. Her third album, released in 1983, was produced by Martin Hannett. She re-surfaced in the early 00's on the French reality television show "Star Academy" where she was a vocal coach for three seasons.

It goes without saying this her first album is the only one worth hearing, for us at least.  The second immediately after she moved into new wave and more simple music.  But this one really is full of gems and wonderful songs, all with that incredible out of this world, outer space, starry, cosmic feeling typical of the seventies when, as I said so many times before, we were promised space travel within our lifetimes for everyone (not just Elon and Jeff Bezos' wife) like Stanley Kubrick depicted in the masterpiece 2001 movie.

For ex., the message from space is:

Her glam rock style of singing, admittedly, is one of the few drawbacks / negative points to this LP. Note that keyboards are by Manuel Villaroel, who was in avant garde jazz outfit Septet Machi-Oul and Skuas (eg. Traversee album).  The saxes, flutes, etc. are done by our beloved Francois Jeanneau.  I posted so much stuff from him, here before, up to that Pandemonium CD, and it's all worth hearing!

I just love the sheer dreaminess that went into Le Chant de la Mer (Song of the sea):

When I listen to that track again I'm just stunned by the way the arrangements and instruments take you in so many directions, evoking the sea in so many ways and waves.