The Nordic Jazz Quintet, 1975

The band was mentioned in connection with our Pop Liisa / Jazz Liisa expedition.  This quintet made one legit LP in 1975 with 3 long tracks, and I won't repeat my lack of patience with those.  Note that the band did include the famed guitarist Jukka Tolonen who appeared in a few of the Pop Liisa / Jazz Liisas, and the quintet as well in the same year recorded for that radio series.  He's rounded out here by bassist Kjell Jansson, percussionist Petur Östlund, flute and sax player Knut Riisnæs and pianist Ole Kock Hansen.

In fact, the long track on side a was played at least partly on the jazz liisa a side of things too.  Here on the official 1975 released LP, the "Nordjazz Suite" includes only a few minutes of composed music, three at the beginning and three more at the end, with the remainder a long and boring series of improvisations, so if they are attempting to represent Scandinavia as boring, they've got me convinced.  Specifically, there's a wonderful fusionary flute intro with ascending electric piano chords followed by some quick improvs, then, as if they were too excited to get back to noodling, or too stoned to realize they had to play a song, there are more and more drawn out improvs with bass for 4 minutes, a wailing sax for 4 more, a meanderingly aimless guitar like a drunkard's walk for another 4 and then the absolute abysmal torture of a several minute long percussion-only solo including a bunch of irritating grade-school triangles I wish I could have torn from his hands.  Finally then an acoustic piano returns to save the day to close out the song with a more tender ballad.   And that's the first side.

The other two tracks were written by Tolonen and are altogether not too bad, I'll sample you the track called Hysterical by him:

Requested Albums: Gipsy River Queen (1979), Smut The Other Half (1979) and Duesenberg Setsuna (1977-1978)

We interrupt the regularly scheduled programming to bring you the previously postponed State of the Union Address.  Here it is:

"It sucks."

Unlike the music here.  From Germany Gipsy's River Queen (aka No. 1), from Japan, the previously unreleased band Duesenberg, and from the States, The Other Half's Smut.  Note that despite the genre descriptors which so often describe this as prog rock for the purposes presumably of hiking up the price of LPs, there is no real progressive content here, but if you're looking for basic hard rock, all 3 albums are great.

The Other Half, hailing from Northwest Ohio, made only one album unfortunately, starting with a long instrumental power chord intro a la Song Remains the Same (I mean the song, from Led Zep's 5th album) and an exposition of the, presumably imaginary here, debauched life of the rock star, the energy never lets up all the way through to the end.  From the second track (title track Smut), the wonderful line stuck out for me:
"she never liked tractors, so they call her a hoe..."
which probably couldn't be used in hip hop today due to its archaic reference...
I guess they fancied themselves wonderful lyricists, because on closer listen, the following 'poem:'

I like little pussy
her coat is so warm
and if I don't hurt her
she'll do me no harm
etc.

Finally, they don't quite escape the influence of the big progressive spirit of the seventies, either that or they couldn't resist the creative insanity of the drugs they were taking (as my wife would say) with one track (Animal Crackers) featuring some really nifty chords and a funky-ass bassline covering some very unusual rifferific territory:





Reminding me a lot of the Edgar Winter's Animals track.

Ave Caesar, Rock-ituri te salutant !!

Orval, Chants et Guitares Acoustiques 1975

In the database here.  Note the 600 dollar price tag.

I know some people adore this kind of 'psych folk' but it leaves me completely indifferent.  I don't like the way they don't even try to play the guitar well compared to the virtuosity of fusion, and the chord progressions, inevitably, are quite ho-hum, patterns you'd find on just about any folk album from the 60s or 70s.  Even the ubiquitous, my most hated, A minor - G - F - E7 is represented once.  The production lacks imagination, with just guitars and singing.  As an example in which they do try to transcend the genre, the best is the Machine a redescendre le temps (i.e. to go back down time):





The last track (Postcard from the United States) has an unfortunate quotation from All Along the Watchtower, the great Nobel Prize-winning lyric by Laureate and immortal master of literature Bob Dylan.

The Three Natural Life albums, by request, plus Androids by Rockwell

Three wonderful long lost and still lost jazzier fusion albums from the late seventies USA created by a sextet that existed for a brief time only, the aforementioned 1983 Mike Elliott Diffusion album forms a fourth to be listened to as an epilogue to the trilogy.  Members included guitarist Elliott, keyboardist Bobby Peterson, sax player Bob Rockwell, and percussionist Steve Kimmel (notable too is the album called Androids which Rockwell made with most of the other members in 1974).  I always loved the varied ideas incorporated in the Elysian Fields:

From pnf days, ST:

Again thanks to the mighty osurec for introducing me to this band that to me is reminiscent of the Muffins in their more approachable, less grumpy moments.  It's headed by Mike Elliott who was quite prolific in the seventies, most of the composition is credited to him.  Read the notes on the back for info on the music.  There will be more to come, promise, or rather, threaten?


Unnamed Land:

On this record, which I think is quite superior to the previously posted ST, the basic quintet (recall this comprises Mike on guitar, Robert Rockwell III on saxes, Bill Berg on drums (and cover art), Bobby Peterson on piano, and W. Peterson Jr. on bass) is augmented by a half dozen more musicians playing vibes, flutes, congas, clarinet, and Rick Peterson on synths (on the last track).  Each song is composed by a different musician pretty much.  For me the standout is the collaborative track "Trio" which is arranged by Elliott, but composed by the two Peterson  gentlemen.   This record has a kind of smooth overall softness in composition and arrangement that to me is so attractive and typical of the late seventies style that, as I mentioned, is utterly concerned with crafting beautiful music with no cynicism, irony, technical artifice, or impediments.  Both "Unnamed Land" and the next, "All Music" are really masterpieces in this genre of american chamber fusion, like the famous Coalition Mindsweepers from osurec.  Btw I'm confused about the placement of the ST Natural Life, although the date on the sleeve is 1977, it seems originally it was the first record to appear, since it predates Mike Elliott's Atrio from 1974 and seems to be a little rougher than these next 2 records.  Presumably it was private pressed first, then rereleased on ASI?

I want to draw your attention to the track Trio, in the middle part of which there is an absolutely stunning fender rhodes-flute interaction, this part is called "Migration" and is credited to bassist Will Peterson.  I don't know how you can more perfectly 'describe' acoustically this image of birds in a wetland, taking flight, dipping, soaring, splashing, in a soft and beautiful landscape.  And it leads so wonderfully into the springtime with the soprano sax from Robert Rockwell.  (As I said before, the soprano sax and the clarinet are classic instruments for these seasons.)  Pay attention as you get suddenly an ascending riff (on the sax) exactly like a bird flying away towards the end.  Just stunning.




And what about the cover drawing from Berg? Well, seems to be a group of native americans or perhaps africans in shallow waters at a beach with the vision of ancestors in the sky-- esthetically great, but the concept?  And the faces in the sky--  yikes!

All Music:

We'll continue on with their discography with this record in which Bill Berg is no longer credited to percussion but is still doing the covers and artwork, which in this case are just stunning, with the mauve watercolours on the back particularly beautiful. The music is the same chamber-fusion with a light touch of flutes, soprano saxes for colour, etc. Let me introduce this with some fine a-propos words from our very own apps: 

" Very melodic US jazz/fusion with some smooth sax work,delicate electric piano and ethereal bass lines not unlike the softer side of RETURN TO FOREVER." 

Well said. Again, it boggles the mind that these records are so rare, not a cd reissue in sight, when the quality both of composition and of musicianship, are so utterly top-notch. And that, of course, is why I indulge in this bizarre and time-consuming hobby, it's a kind of community service to rip these old records for posterity, in the hopes posterity will respect the astounding work that went into them and give them a higher spot in the musical-quality scale of things than oh I don't know, the latest Britney Spears cd, perhaps. And for those like me who do believe we are heading towards a post-industrial world of blackouts and brownouts, it is quite imaginable that the manually-cranked record player may yet make a comeback, a hundred years from now, when electricity is sporadic, and people want to listen to this virtuosity from the past -- on the other hand, we are more likely to see manually-operated computers and cd players anyways if that comes to pass, so forget that fantasy. 

I'll throw in the Androids LP too, since I believe few people out there have ever heard the complete work, other than the sampled title track.  It's not quite as tight and interesting as the NL works, far more jazzy and has too many improvised sections for my taste.

Karlos P. Steinblast compleat

I was surprised to see the last official album he made, Steinblast and Friends' Jazz Funk, is not more known. It's not as good as the first two hard rock titles, but occasionally the same invention shines through, as on the track in 7/4:





He's interesting too for uniquely American reasons.  Starting off as a typical stoner rocker with a great deal of admiration for Led Zep presumably in the well-titled "Hard Rock Vol.1" and in his second explicitly stating his primary reason for desiring fame: "I Need a Woman," he later toned everything down in the Jazz Funk record.  As commenters have pointed out, he was already religious (for example at his concerts he lectured to the audience) but subsequently became an all-out born again Christian and transformed himself into a genuine preacher, which is his career to this very day.  He has continued to make music, but it's a little watered down by the religious influence.  It would be wonderful to know what he thinks today of his first, masterpiece album.

From prognotfrog days:

We have to admire these dedicated or perhaps stone-crazy American artists like Karlos P. Steinblast who continued making progressive music into the eighties when it was completely unfashionable and unsustainable.  He even proudly proclaimed it on the cover: "progressive rock" -- pretty uncompromising, or perhaps stoned lacking in sobriety, to fly his freak prog flag so high.   It was a style already uncool by the late seventies as far as I've read.  Yet this record is full of references to how he'll gain fame and groupies, though it hasn't happened yet: dear cadillac-driving Karlos, why not copy Duran Duran?  

When you look at this guy if you're old enough you're taken straight back to childhood and those crazy over-hairy days, those lazy over smokey-and-the-bandit days of stinky herbal park benches endlessly discussing Jimmy Page versus Jeff Beck, while 'Eric Clapton is god'.  His best record is actually the one that came before, the first, called "Hard Rock Vol. 1".  I will post also the third one, "Steinblast and Friends" which demonstrated a bit of deterioration in quality, not the best friends to have around maybe.  Notice that the "I need a woman"  Suite from the second transforms into "I don't need no leash" in the next record, a year later - how many of us men have felt the same way one or two years into marriage?  check out some of the lyrics for that one:

"Woman let me be, and shut your screaming face,
I don't need no leash
I don't need no collar
I don't need the way that you scream and holler"

To focus on the track "Where is Debbie Miller?" is to be taken back to those hazy redolent five-leaved days of 1981 when all was denim and possible, droppable, inhaleable, when big fat psilocybin-fueled dinosaur America still ruled the world of cars with its carboniferous chevys, massive mustangs, trashy trans-ams; it's the story of Debbie Miller, a teenaged girl who witnessed Karlos get run over by a Cadillac: "he's squashed, baby, between two cars!!!" -- when the PO-lice came, of course, she had to run away because she was 'jailbait'.   But here's the best part; halfway through the song, he suddenly starts asking "Where's my kazoo???  Where's my kazoo????"  --and then he plays the kazoo!

On the back of the record, this plaintive little note from Karlos: " Could the DJ's in the Illinois area please play 'where is Debbie Miller' to help me locate her? It's very important! Thank You!"

But yeah, that's what it was like back then in the late seventies early eighties.  People tell me.  The American dream-- Morning again in America.  America the beautiful, America the great, home of the bald eagle and the toupee'd presidents, Stars and Strippers forever.  Come back to the 5 and dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean, the Boulevard of Broken Dreams has led you to the Last House on Dead End Street, but now night has fallen and as Mao once said, for us to soon see, " it's never darkest till it's completely black " ...

Regarding the first album:

This is by far his best work (and indeed one of my favourite guitar-rock albums from the US) featuring some really raw, psychiatric and hard-assed guitarwork-- moreover, most songs are quite progressive and each in its own uniquely bizarre way.  The one thing about this album is the late year-- you'd think most of this material was written 5-8 years before, especially given the Led Zep-influence that seems to be omnipresent.  )

Let's just have a listen to the first magnificent masterpiece track, "Me and my babe--"  wherein Karlos  stays at home with his babe gettin' it on:

"we can't drive -- with the price of gas,
fuel oil -- running out fast --
we keep warm under cover --
please don't tell -- my mother"

--showing he was a peak oil believer 25 years ahead of his time-- but then the song goes: 

"Costs too much to go nowhere--
I don't wear no underwear"

--this is truly an insane genius deserving of immortality.   As I said, each track has its own interesting twist: the spacey funk that starts side b, the fast instrumental riff that follows (called Stabb, sampled below), recalling perhaps the Frankenstein song by the Edgar Winter Group, the lament for being stranded in New York City, the "I hate disco" song that sounds so beautifully quaint today, esp. with the utter dominance of 'dance music' in today's world... again note his wonderfully original guitar-playing style, often using chunky chords punctuated by fast riffs to interconnect phrases.