David Diggs Part 2, Streetshadows (1984), Right before your eyes (1986), Nothing but the truth (1989), Eye of the Storm (1995)

 

Listen to the Solitude from Right Before Your Eyes, 1986, gives you an idea of the influence of the 1980s on the music:

Most of the album unfort. is commercial vocal pop.

Overall the 1995 fully instrumental album called Eye of the Storm is quite enjoyable, the title track sampled here is pleasant indeed, oddly enough the CD closes out with the dismal Xmas classic Hark the Herald Angels, for no discernable or understandable reason at all.

David Diggs, by request: First Flight (1973), Elusion (1978), Realworld (1983)

 

Discogged here:

Jazz arranger, composer, orchestrator, conductor, band leader based in Los Angeles, CA.

This was a pleasant surprise, requested by a commenter just recently.  An artist I knew nothing about, and oddly enough he put out quite a few releases back in the day, you can see he averaged almost one yearly from the first one in 1973.  Some of the LPs are missing online digitally and surely I'll see if I can hunt them down to see if there are gems on there.  However, the beginning was a little inauspicious (from our fusionary perspective that is) because his oeuvre starts with mostly straight jazz in the big band style, with a tiny bit of creative electricity.  For ex., from the debut, the track called  Diana which in my opinion is the best one, so don't get too excited on the strength of this one:

The 1978 album called Elusion though is really something, there is quite the awakening of fusionary instincts as you can tell from the track itself called that, Awakening:

Really impressive album straight through.

From 1983's Realworld, Gentle Thoughts:

Obviously, getting into the 80s here, we can expect -- you know what we can expect.

I'll try getting more and coming back with those later.

Praise Poems Vol. 9

 

Again, the track called The Ring by Diane Elliott feels like it should have been a mega-hit back then when it was released as a single, in  ??  who knows when as it was only rereleased in 2022. 

Talk about an obscurity, it wasn't even released back in the day!

A track called Hey Flicka by Mikael Neumann (Danish-Swedish guitarist and songwriter) impressed me enough that I bought the vinyl from 1973 to rip so I'll be back shortly with that one. Too bad the fusion and funk for the most part ran out from the earliest installments of the Praise Poems series.

And another, The Answer Lies in Love from a 1977 single, an absolutely lovely Bacharach imitation:

This is such a great example of what I'm always talking about, a track beautifully written and performed, very much like countless other Motown hits from the day, similar for ex. to any hit by Curtis Mayfield or Al Green that made it onto the pop charts, and tragically lost in the bottom of a singles crate until some incredibly patient collector, 50 years later, half a century, resuscitated it for this compilatory release--god bless the folks who did this, really. Imagine all the dross and dreck they had to slog through to find the handful of gems that make this worth hearing, but is it ever worth hearing, I think you'll agree, even just judging from the quality of these last few tracks.

That song for sure was a real standout for me.

Praise Poems Vol. 8

 

This one has a few interesting tracks.

They All Seem To Know, to me, seems like it should've been a hit back then, in 1976, oddly though it was put in as a b side:

As requested Geoff Tyus in Continuation, 1979, fresh rip with limited time lossless

 

From discogs:

American pianist, composer and keyboardist, died 7 October 2007.

This was requested and I didn't have much to go on other than the Mt. Vernon composition from the Praise Poems series, which admittedly was wonderful. His first LP from 1979 though is mostly solo piano, which definitely gets a little boring at times. The first two tracks achieve a bit of library feel to them with the more filled out arrangements, as in the first:

Notice the appearance of Joplin's horrific The Entertainer piano piece, made famous at the time by that Robert Redford movie that was big in the 70s. Amazingly, he manages to ruin an already monstrous piece, with boogie-woogie stylings, to make it even more blood-curdling. The second side is all solo piano, partly improvised.