Gordon Brisker in Collective Consciousness, USA 1981

Recall he composed for the Magnussons, father and son, in Two Generations of Music (1982).  As a matter of fact notice that Bob Magnusson appears on this release databased here, as well as the familiar name of (keyboardist) Bill Mays.  This is the 6th post relating to Mr. Mays, but I still liked his Kaleidoscope the best.  Surprisingly our old favourite guitarist Don Mock is also here, but only on side a, and no Peter Sprague this time.  Mock's name has been repeated numerous times as a point of reference (though I guess James Vincent takes the cake on that score), I'm hoping everyone recalls his magnificent fusion opus Mock One.

On this LP the sound is fusiony in the late manner but there is a big band sound that is quite pleasant with Brisker's saxes augmented by trumpet and trombone.  Some of it is the inevitable commercialized fuzak but some is more composed in the chamber style we heard before on Two Generations, e.g. the Orientale track that closes it out:

It shouldn't be a surprise that Brisker was an alumnus of Berklee in Boston.

The last track on side one with Don Mock is oddly entitled Funny Fox (odd, in  conjunction with the music) but is appealingly smooth and film noir-ish:

 

 Then on the title track which opens side two, I'm surprised the music is not more intellectual rather than generic 'post-bop' contemporary jazz styling.

Bob Magnusson returns with Two Generations of Music

From discogs:

Bob Magnusson is a jazz, pop and classical bassist as well as a teacher.

born 24 February 1947 in New York City, USA

He studied Frensh horn for 12 years and switched to double bass in 1967. He has worked with a great variety of artists, including: Sarah Vaughan, Art Pepper Quartet, Linda Ronstadt, Natalie Cole, Neil Diamond, Bonnie Raitt, 10,000 Maniacs and Madonna.

We covered him before in connection with Bill Mays and Peter Sprague, both of whom appear on this release with him.  Like the amazing Kaleidoscope album from Bill, they tend to mix classical or chamber music composition with laid-back contemporary jazz styles and this album from 1982 goes all-out with the classical styled composition, luckily, in the modern idiom with a ton of dissonance and weaving complicated patterns, influenced as usual by moderns like Stravinsky and Bartok.  Despite that father Magnusson on clarinet appears along with the son Bob on bass, the music is mostly written by a third party who is Gordon Brisker, another illustrious jazz musician who obviously received a splendid post-grad classical music education somewhere.  For example, the track called Magnanimity:

The album closes with a suite by the elder, Daniel Magnusson, about Iceland, which is where the family comes from, which is not as sharp and detailed as the compositions by Brisker.

Bill Mays and Bob Shanks return in Explorations 1980: A Journey into the world of flute and piano music

Lovely cover.  So reminiscent of the times...

Here's the information for this one.

The first side is the suite composed by Bill Mays which is a bit all over the place, disconnected, a bit ADHD, in the sense it mixes classical composition, sometimes baroque even Mozartian, not at all amateur but a lotta Amadeus, with the more fanciful flights of flute jazz we have heard before on other fusion records, especially the Europas.  But it's strictly acoustic piano from Bill with the flute from Bob Shanks.

The second side is given over to jazz interpretations of classical pieces, some very famous like the Girl With the Flaxen Hair which has been reinvented so many times in the jazz canon, not sure if you know this CD for example by Israeli group Platina, I remember learning it in the conservatory piano programme and hating the multiple flats that made it so difficult at the time until I realized I could just play it as written and ignore the flats, as if it was in C.  But that's cheating. The whole point about learning piano is the difficulty of it-- as a millenial being would have so much trouble understanding. Wait, what? Not just by watching youtube? That's so dumb...

Going back to side one, Bill's Suite gets better as you go further along, as if moving forward in time from centuries ago to the current (!) 1980 progressive jazz time.  Of forty years back.  The Star Sail of part 4 is just wonderful, note the high virtuosity of Shanks coupled with the very delicate breathing, technically as beautiful musically as anything I've ever heard:

Back to Bill Mays in Kaleidoscope (1992)

Peter Sprague who appeared earlier in the preceding posts reappears, but not Magnusson, at least on this occasion.  And this occasion is surprisingly good for the late year, though marred unfortunately by those dumb standards incl. the horrendously Yersenia Pestis-like Body and Soul which is given a kind of ethereal touch with classical-influenced high-pitch piano key wanderings, interesting to hear though ultimately when that stupid melody kicks in, disappointing.

However there are two tracks here that blew me away, the ST Kaleidoscope:

and the one called Adirondack with the subtitle Wedding Serenade:

These two tracks are absolutely perfect music, as far as I'm concerned, or IMHO as my kids would put it.  There is nothing that could make these better, artistically.

I threw in here a mostly acoustic and mostly solo Peter Sprague release from 1980 I thought would be interesting, but isn't really, called Bird Raga.  There is another from him with the lovely title of Na Pali Coast, a name which will be familiar to those who have ever visited Hawai'i, but there is a track missing and the names have been mixed up, I threw it in too.

If he's reading this, my guitar-loving reader who lives in Hawai'i will surely jump up off his chair. Or surfboard.

Lucky those who are 'locked down' in a beach town!

Howard Roberts Quartet with Bill Mays in 1981's Turning to Spring

 

If only, we were turning to spring...  More like turning to the dead of winter.  Or turning to the rolling over in the grave.  Or turning into zombies.  Turning to the makeshift morgues...

For a big change in mood for these very dark times here's another pretty and laid-back jazz album that is almost identical to the predecessor post featuring again the keyboardist Bill Mays that will bring you back, I guarantee you, to a time long before pandemic viruses.  Bill's compositional contributions are the highlight here. Note the delicate expressiveness achieved on the electric keys + guitar interplay on No Hurry:

On the database page you can see the credits for songwriting are all over the place, luckily there's only one throwaway jazz standard in Hoagy Carmichael's hoary old Skylark who I'd love to shoot out of the sky with a skeet rifle in mid-song.

Most likely the name Howard Roberts is well known (ha ha ha!) among the true progressive cognoscenti because in the first half of the 70s he put out two tremendously inventive and creative progressive fusion albums in Antelope Freeway (1971) and Equinox Express Elevator (1975) and I hope everyone knows and has those already.  So far as I know that pair were the only masterpieces, and I see tons and tons of dross in his long, long discography. 

More from Bill Mays shortly.

Bob Magnusson Quartet, Bill Mays, Bob Shanks, Road Work Ahead (1981)

Here's a lovely little totally unknown release by a bunch of artists I never heard before. Leader Bob Magnusson from NYC plays bass in this group while his quartet adds Peter Sprague on guitar, Jim Plank on percussion, & Bill Mays on keyboards.  Like so many other jazz records a blurb appears on the back with elaborate and fawning descriptions of the music, amusing to read, since it hails from a bygone, pre-social-media era when you didn't have to be cynical, adolescent, and conspiracy-minded to stand up and speak to the world.  So for ex. the track called As Our Children Sleep sure enough was written by Bob for his kids and the title suggested by them (-and wouldn't it be interesting to see the kinds of comments this would pick up in a place like twitter or even youtube if I reprinted that description):

The track called Zephyr by Bill Mays demonstrates a lot of creative ideas:

I'll surely be back with more from these guys.  I threw in a lossless for once because it's so lovely to hear the near mint condition of the record and crystal clear sound-- for all those out there with big-ass speakers still sitting in their living rooms to be used here, I salute you.