More Gianni Fallabrino: Musical Images N°1 [year unknown, early 70s] + Music for Brass + Happy New Year to all!

More modern classical music along the lines of the Musicali from before, with piano accompanying various woodwind or brass instruments, but unfortunately, not everyone playing together.  Here compositions are a little too baroquely classical to really have much bite unfortunately, being equivalent to time machine transport back into the 19th century perhaps, or maybe XC years before.  The staccato style of old European music in particular really starts to grate (did their old folk dances involve a lot of spastic jumping or something?) as it did when my dad used to force me to listen to Haydn's execrable dung-beetle-beloved Surprise Symphony along with the comment that rock music would never stand the test of time.  Considering that test of time for musical arts today is something on the order of a kindergarten-level education plus a preteen's use of creatively assembled swear words, I think my poor old dad was wrong-- on many levels...

Some information.


First track, called Romantico Minuetto:

Mike Mainieri & Warren Bernhardt ‎together in Free Smiles: Live At Montreux 1978 [by request]

This album featuring two keyboardists was requested once a while back.  It took me some time to get to on account of the backlog of other records to discuss-- god bless my contacts and helpers for keeping me so supplied with goodies, and I pray this problem continues into the next year...

To cover Mike Manieri first, his 1981 album is far superior to the seventies effort, I don't recall a similar instance where the eighties product is more enjoyable (better composed and progressive) than the seventies-- quite unusual.  There is a Noco Music aspect to the track called L'Image from the album Wanderlust:





In musicianship, it's no contest-- his vibes work is fabulous, flawless.  Why would a guy go from commercial sap in Love Plays (1977) to more advanced progressive fusion in 1981's Wanderlust? 
And look at the atrocious cover photo! (last on the bottom).


Turning now to the other artist, you can see Warren Bernhardt made a number of solo piano albums, for which there is no interest to me, having heard too much of that one-dimensional genre in university.  However, his album called Manhattan from 1979 featured some very tasty fusion without any letdown from start to finish:





In this case of course, his seventies records are far superior to the eighties ones-- which is totally expected and the way the world is supposed to work.  I'll post a 1983 (acoustic) trio album from him that still proves enjoyable with its intricate and occasionally delicate compositions (see cover below).


Regarding this joint LP, the 1978 Live in Montreux, we are dealing with a pure duet so there is not too much textural quality to go around, but the compositions are at times quite ingenious and intricate.  Listen to Mainieri's Garlicky piece here:





Then at the end you will notice how well the last track fits in to our progressive dreams as Warren pulls out that nostalgia-inducing (Moog?) synth for some nice wavy evocations of the Mediterranean Sea on top of Mainieri's vibey arpeggio waters.  Most of the compositions by the latter, note.

Boxing Day Specials: Early Times Second Album 1976

From our old friend Tom:

Not to be confused with the contemporaneous Early Times String Band (a Japanese 70s folk-rock ensemble that has become slightly better known due to a couple of reissue/archival releases), this incredibly obscure album was the second effort of a local Sapporo based group. Their first is so rare that, while it must exist, has apparently never been glimpsed a single time by even the most hardcore Japanese collectors after all these years. All that aside, what we have here is a very interesting anachronism that sounds more like an underground Japanese take on early 70s British proto-progressive styles than anything else. Even the Monty Python-esque cover art seems to point in that direction. It kicks off with with an extremely cool horn rock-ish affair, featuring vintage organ, electric piano, funky percussion and psych guitar backed by a female chorus to great effect. This is followed by a lengthy proto-prog style guitar/organ led jam that slowly builds in intensity, with some great soloing. The rest of the first side then kind of puts on the breaks, with a couple of slow blues rock pieces that still have a very palpable early 70s UK feel to them. The second side starts with another gradually building instrumental jam, that eventually hits an awesome groove while the soloing breaks out overhead, before slowing down again into a more pensive mood. We then reach the real climax of the album, with the nearly 13 minute long final track. Building slowly once again (a hallmark of theirs, it seems), this starts out in a jazzy/bluesy horn rock mode, then builds in intensity as the soloing picks up and the vocals join in again, ending in a long crescendo of bluesy psych guitar soloing over the horn rock/proto-prog style jamming. Great stuff, and the whole album has a very loose, underground sound and vibe that is just flat out cool.


Personally I wasn't so impressed with this, though my taste is deficient when it comes to the more 'psych' sounds others seem to go crazy over.  At any rate this demonstrates the principle that no matter how rare a record, eventually a digital version will turn up somewhere or another, in this case, here.  That is, if you're paying attention, or still on the lookout for it.

For me the most listenable track is b1, Time Out:





Check out the inserts included in the package that show how the musicians wanted to show off their ability at writing music correctly (as did Noctett on Full Score).

Merry Christmas: Gianni Fallabrino's Music for Sensations, 1971

Don't you love that early seventies / sixties cover?  It reminds me a lot of the French artist who animated la Planete Sauvage which also had such a great soundtrack (by Alain Goraguer).

Some of these Italian library records are astonishingly expensive.  When we listen to them-- finally--  we are often left with a sense of shock.  Like waking up on November 9th this year.  This one usually sells in the hundreds of euros, but clearly, is not necessarily musically worth that much, and you can now decide this issue for myself.  It appears that this was his first Library record, he made quite a few more of which the 1980 Europa album was posted earlier along with Momenti here.

The problem here is not to waste too much money on something disappointing, although these particular libraries thanks to those anonymous faceless collectors (the basement dwellers as my wife calls them) do get more valuable, usually, as the years pass, very slowly.  Nor does making a digital copy available seem to affect the price on ebay or discogs in general, which is always a bit surprising.

Back to the music for sensations.  I will say this is like standard-issue early 70s library music with a wide-ranging mixture of funk, easy listening, simple melodies, and occasional nods lasting on the order of a second or two in the direction of the more progressive music going on in the background of the decade, on occasional songs.  The track For Cynthia is available on youtube here, and the other one uploaded there is Impression.

Thank you Gianni...
...and more to come.

The 3 Libraries of Volker Kriegel and The Groove-Combination: Untitled, with Leaf, and With Rainer Bruninghaus on side 2

All the albums of the great German guitarist Kriegel are worth seeking out (plus the ones he made with the Mild Maniac Orchestra), even the ones dipping into the 80s.  He never gave up the original, relaxed, and warm & tender songwriting style he developed quite early on in such homages to females as Marie - Thérèse, though the wild fusion definitely petered out.

These three library records are still quite unknown despite their high quality-- not subpar in any way compared to the official releases.  The last one with the presence of ECM keyboardist and Eiliff player the great Rainer (everyone know his work, I hope?) really excited my curiosity despite the bland titles being all I had to go with and so I jumped in and grabbed it.

The first two are so similar to his other work I wondered if maybe they are hand-selected excerpts from the discography but I didn't recognize any tracks I had heard before, except maybe the Palm Dreams composition.  As an example from the second one-- you can't really expect much from a track called The Stripper but surprisingly it's tender and well-shaped unlike most strippers I've had the lack of pleasure to have ever seen in my Univ. days:





The final album (and the rarest!) is the big treat here, side one being Volker's and the second side Rainer's.  The titles are quite generic but the music is not so.  The Butterfly Landing is quite remarkable:





Enjoy...