The last Simon and Bard in The Enormous Radio from 1984

For some reason I bought a VG media this time, and I must first apologize for that.  Not the usual practice here obviously.  Perhaps our old friend quimsy can repair the file for us, if he is still out there, listening.

Are we now too chronically far into the eighties fuzakitis to enjoy good music?  Well, the quality has depreciated a tad for sure, but this definitely has its delightful moments and kindnesses to offer us, and note Larry Coryell is back on guitar.  I think most here can enjoy some more tasteful fusion, all instrumental.  Incidentally, after listening all past week to the previous LP from them, I have to say I really enjoyed it greatly, more than most finds from recent memory.

A track called "A Boy and His Dog" reminds me of the old scifi film with Don Johnson, in which, briefly, in the setting of a post-apocalyptic future (like in the book/movie "The Road") everyone has to fight to survive-- unlike in the McCormack book wherein the hero is accompanied by his young son, here Don has a telepathic dog to help him seek out food and warn him of danger in a symbiotic relationship.  One day he discovers a subterranean city where humans have isolated themselves from the perils or radioactivity of the outside earth and a beautiful woman there falls in love with him and vice versa...  I won't bother to warn you of my shocking spoiler here, how when they finally escape from down there after multiple adventures, Don finds his loyal dog starving to death because he had abandoned him and after looking at the girl--  the last scene shows them happily walking off into the sunset together again.
Obviously the kind of movie that sadly cannot be made anymore today.






And consider the utterly bizarre title given to the Nuns Canyon Waltz in contradistinction to the beauty of the contents:





Sadly, no long track this time, though the record does end in a brilliantly dramatic & built up finale (Vampire cows on parade!).


And this was made in 1984... ah, how well we all remember those alt-truths...
In Miranda's words: "Oh Brave new world, that has such people in it!"

Noonan, Levi and Houshmand in East River (USA,1971) by request

From the inclusion in this package:

 Patrick Noonan (acoustic guitar, pedal steel guitar),
 Jonathan Levi (violin),
 John Houshmand (12-string acoustic guitar)

 An original copy of the ultra-rare private press Stoner Folk LP East River by
 New England trio Noonan, Levi and Houshmand (Cavern Custom Recording - no number).
 Long out of print and never released on CD because the master tapes were lost.
 A long lost classic from the dawn of New Age and World Music.
 Much more interesting music than most of what is called New Age.
 The record is best left without any musical label attached to it.
 There's even a version of Gershwin's Summertime.East River - Houshmand


This album was briefly discussed here in connection with their other work and please back refer to that post.
It's really quite beautiful and has that blissfully innocent sincerity that is/was a hallmark of the music of the seventies.  (Sigh)-- we're a long way away from that now, aren't we?

More Doug Lofstrom in 1981' s Spontaneous Combustion, but free jazz

Doug is the gentleman in the center, and plays bass, flute, percussion and 'vocals.'  Corpolongo is on saxes and Paul Wertico on drums.
I should have realized from the title that we were to expect free jazz and spontaneous improvs and been a bit more circumspect.  What I find most irritating about free jazz is the mix of pure noise with dissonant atonal (which I often don't mind) and ridiculous dixieland sounds that are completely incongruent, as if you had a patch of renaissance cherub and Madonna inside a Pollock.

Here's the last track, thankfully brief:



ANYONE FOR A LOSSLESS?

Next Simon and Bard: Tear It Up with Ralph Towner from 1982

After Musaic I was quite eagerly anticipating the next installment but when I heard the first track my heart dropped.  Luckily, as in Doug Lofstrom's oddball Beatlesian choice of opener for his Music album, the remainder turned out to be totally of the same inimitable ilk as the first album.  It seems the opener merely shows some conciliatory gestures towards the elementary school fuzak that was such an unrelenting and incurable plague of the eighties, after which the musicians are given freedom to play sophisticated and elegantly intelligent music.  In fact, already by the second track the sweeter meditative side of the band is quite in evidence, on a little composition called Lazlo's Muse:





Notice the percussive ascending piano chord pattern from Fred Simon which was a big feature of the Musaic composition.  As on the previous album, a longer suite appears, this time at the start of the second side, this time called Octabloon.  Look forward to that very well composed sonata-structured piece with different tempo'd sections and again very Muffins-like, with a most dramatic finale.

My one perhaps critical comment, meek as it is, may be that ultravirtuoso Ralph is not put to the fore as we had hoped.  It's OK-- this is Simon and Bard's show.

Look forward again to more.

Doug Lofstrom's Music composition from 1984, USA

A generic title and cover concealing within its cardboard square some far from generic music, this is the masterwork of one Doug Lofstrom, conceived and recorded in the early years of the eighties.  It makes me so full of hope to think there are still such overlooked masterpieces of composition hidden away in the vaults of time waiting to be discovered and given new life for a more open-minded audience.

There is a beautiful blurb included inside about the artist, his aspirations, and descriptions of the pieces.  In particular Doug mentions an experimental fusion group called Fantasie prior to this LP.  No release can be found under that name that I can find.  A sad comment about the 'silence of the record labels' can be seen too...

Note the second side is a symphony or perhaps fantasia called The Plumed Serpent (about Montezuma, I gather) which has an accompanying poem whose first stanza is the following:

Prelude--

   predawn, a touch of orange on navy...
   a huddled child begins a dance of awakening,
   gradually becoming aware of environment.
   a gradual unfolding, unfurling;
   an exploration, a testing.


I think it gives great insight to read his notes, where you will see it was first conceived as a ballet but never performed in public as such.  There is sparse to no information in discogs.  Moving on to The Great Google though, the man's own website reveals he went on to a successful career in the concert halls of the US: as composer in residence for the Metropolis Symphony Orchestra and during the 80's, musical director of Chicago's Free Street Theatre.

To quote:

His works have been performed by the St. Louis, Atlanta and Oregon Symphony Orchestras, and the Present Music and CUBE chamber ensembles. His most recent endeavors include the score for Alakshaya, commissioned by the Natya Dance Theatre and a Concertino for Oboe and Orchestra, commissioned by the New Philharmonic Orchestra.  Mr. Lofstrom has composed several works for Midwest Ballet Theatre, and three works for the Evansville, IN "musictelling" group Tales and Scales, including The Arabian Nights, Just Beyond the Junkyard and Jabberwocky.  In 2001, Lofstrom formed The New Quartet, a versatile chamber ensemble which performs his original music and arrangements of modern classics, jazz and world music. He is currently on the music faculty of Columbia College in Chicago, IL.
(The New Quartet is available on amazon.)

Listen to the glorious composition, so professionally pure and youthfully creative, in the track called L'Egyptienne:





Perhaps reminiscent of the French composer Laurent Petitgirard, who reached the olympian peak of progressive pop-symphonic perfection on the sidelong composition Suite Epique.  And indeed the overall sound and atmosphere is quite similar.  But there is one thing you have to overlook: the first track, an instrumental cover of Paul McCartney's Blackbird done in easy listening style.  Nothing more to say about that.

Many thanks to my friend for this stunning and very surprising discovery...
May we have many more of them this year as in times past!!!