Back to JOCR with 1982's TOČR + JOČR ‎in Matiné Populární A Jazzové Hudby

For this 1982 outing, side one's TOCR is the dance orchestra and side 2's JOCR is the jazz orchestra, both from Czech radio.  Think about those times, when you could have a professional orchestra just devoted to radio broadcasts that everyone listened to together, so unlike social media or youtube's uber-idiotic viral videos.

Accordingly, we have mostly easy listening and/or simple (pre-1800) classical music on side one, including some pretty syrupy vocals-- think Tony Bennett or [choke] Harry Connick Jr..  Whether or not you like this depends on your tolerance for easy listening, good as it might be.  The JOCR group on the other hand tries to have it both ways, with composed classical music and fusion thrown into the mix, just as we like.  One quite interesting track is called Trubaci and it's by someone called Pavel Blatny:





In fact we are well acquainted with him from an album I posted earlier, which was fully composed by him, called Dialogy - Studie.

Czech singer Eva Olmerová with Michael Kocab, JOCR, in the early 80s

Continuing on with the Czech LPs, here's an artist who made some nice music in the early 80s, but clearly belonging to the 70s.  On the first album she lays bare her jazz credentials, sounding like an Ella doing fusion.  Here's the great Michael Kocab track called Monolog:





Btw Kocab is well known to all of you-- whether or not you realize it-- from the stunning fusion masterpiece Prazsky Vyber - Zizen.

On the later album unfortunately she takes a turn into the smooth jazz / doo-wop direction, anachronistically, though understandable for that period in the early 80s, and therefore disappoints. I didn't check if fusion master Kocab is still on board or if he is, averted his eyes and ears.

Back to Huje with 1984

The next year from the prior posting here's the 1984 installment.  Notice that unlike Starbucks this band doesn't allow white people inside, in fact, it's the photographic negative of your typical local Starbucks.  (Apparently in the early 80s a white trumpeter was arrested for showing up to HUJE band practice.)

I really like the dynamism of the Spirit Cry:





This is a composition by Gregory Charles Royal, who plays lead trombone, prophet 600 and misc. percussion.  What he says about this in the liner notes is interesting:

"Spirit Cry, which was recorded on my first album called Dream Come True, was inspired by the Wayne Shorter composition Free for All, which was recorded by Art Blakey and Jazz Messengers, with whom I've had the pleasure to play.  It was my intent in this arrangement that the bold french horn intro build through the solos and be relieved by the contemporary section.  After a brief recap, the composition winds its way down to the trombone and horn duet... this composition is dedicated to my parents, Drs. George and Gladys Royal."

Greek Mariangela in 1975

Many of you might be already familiar with this super-cute album which I heard just recently, its claim to fame being partly or mostly that it was produced by Vangelis.  The singer is highly reminiscent of Olivia Newton-John, one of my old childhood favourites, especially in this insanely naive song:





Yes girl, it's time to be a woman now, because today you can post your abuser's name on MeToo, accuse him of assault, have trolls gang up on him online with death threats to him and his children, make him lose his job, perhaps go to jail then be labelled forevermore as a sex offender, unwelcome in any community-- how times have changed, can you imagine that just over 40 years ago you could take advantage of a presumably teenage virgin like her, no matter your age, and then dump her quicker than you pull on your right pant leg?  Of course we've changed, as I've said before, in a mostly positive direction, towards more rights for all people regardless of 'minority' status (or 'majority' in the case of the female gender), and it's remarkable how gradual and unnoticeable that change has been-- at least if your last name is not Trump or you're not Russian.  Will the change continue to be positive, as Steven Pinker in his recent book, suggests?  Personally, I think that depends entirely on whether you live in one of the lucky countries (of Europe or North America or parts of Asia) or if you live in a country like Somalia or Afghanistan, where things are definitely not getting better.

Which is why I love so much these hopelessly naive albums from the seventies...

7 Akira Ishikawa and Count Buffalos albums

First track off African Rock, called Prayer:





A brief bio of him:

Japanese jazz drummer, session drummer. Born in Kanagawa Yokosuka. November 10, 1934 - February 10, 2002.
He joined Shin Matsumoto and New Pacific on drums. This was his musician debut.
After that he travels across the band with Akira Miyazawa Modern Allstars, Toshio Hosaka and Emanaries.  Later he became active as Toshiyuki Miyama and New Hard drummer.
After that he joined the Count Four and he formed a band with the session members at that time called Akira Ishikawa And The Gentures (meaning local people gathering). This was his band leader group. This was the band that became the base of Akira Ishikawa & Count Buffaloes.

You can see under his own name a ton of releases, none of which I'm familiar with.  Anyone know anything about those, regarding quality?  Then, in the famous group complete with buffalos, another excessively prolific series.  Again, suggestions of high quality fusion/progressive in there are quite welcome.

For myself this is standard funk-fusion with not too much to hang on to, for the most part, very professionally done, but lacking in composing originality.  The later albums seem to veer dangerously into elevator muzak and feature far too many cover songs for my taste.  On the other hand the earlier ones are so indebted to percussive African rhythms they forget to change chords or even provide a melody to sustain us through a half side's music.