University Of Miami Concert Jazz Band ‎in the (truly) Halcyon Days of 1979

Back to the ol' college bands when I run out of material to post, right? one for the gipper, as we used to say...  But how saddening it is to think of it-- What happened to you, red white and blue?  Where did you go so wrong? so long, for a song...  I loved you so much as a child, with all your hope and talent and promise, the wild and beautiful land full of natural riches and artistic brilliance, lucky enough to create not one but two world-changing art forms with jazz and then rock-- full of friendly and gregarious people and brilliant scientists, technological marvels like the first computers, the moon landing... what happened??  You think bringing back coal is going to reverse this Lusitania?  What happened to cherishing the beauty of the land, all the Walden forests? The streams full of trout lakes full of bass and the plains that fed the whole world?  What happened to upholding democracy and freedom throughout the world and setting an example for the inevitable autocrats showing up like whackamoles on the world stage?  What the hell happened to you, US of A?  You are actually going to sell your soul to Russia now?  Not even to a great country, to Russia???   It's just cringing embarrassment from now on in, isn't it...  Well, at least here on this blog we can time travel back to those halcyon days of the seventies and hear all the promise and potential, like the smile of a two-year old child who doesn't know the dismal fate that awaits him in the future as he spends his (short) life working those reopened Appalachian coal mines...

This is actually the fourth album from them according to our discography and they went on to make many more, quite prolifically.  It's a double LP and so there is a great deal of enjoyable material here, along with some (for me always throwaway) standards, thankfully too few to mention.  Bob Meyer (not producer or arranger, surprisingly) is the star on this outing, and his best piece in my opinion is Renegade, and it sure is a beauty:





Halcyon Days, indeed...

NDR Jazzworkshop 1977 with Philip Catherine

The first side of this 1977 release is given over to Buddy Rich and his Big Band, and I won't get into that.  The importance of this edition is of course the presence of the second side's Philip Catherine, the great Belgian guitarist whose works are mandatory for the fusion fan.  His two entries here are India and Les Sept Boules de Cristal, a track which appeared in the stunning, gorgeous opus 1979 Sleep My Love, one of my all-time favourite Euro-fusion records, maintaining a balance of meditative and ethereal beauty from beginning to the closing: an interpretation of an Arnold Schoenberg melody, which completely knocked me out when I first heard it.  Those were the days, right...  The other track from him, India, I haven't located yet where it's from originally though I'm sure it's somewhere, not that I have any desire to hear the original album version as it's one of those drony Eastern songs that remains stuck in one chord (and it's E I think to boot, the easiest of all on the guitar).  The album closes out with the United Jazz etc. (also mandatory listening for fusionauts) and our old hero Wolfgang Dauner playing the unfortunately chosen Bebop Rock (a Dauner composition).  But what a lineup-- with Eberhard Weber on bass, Albert Mangelsdorff, Ian Carr (Nucleus!), Volker Kriegel, and Charlie again on sax, you have a real European all-star band to close it out.

Here's Philip:




Who could ever forget the image of Tournesol surrounded by ball lightning?  I enjoyed rereading all the Tintins last summer with my sons, who became so briefly obsessed with his adventures we were forced to get every book in the series including the awful first one from Russia which I never finished and the incomplete last one which can be found online.  From the perspective of adulthood, we can see there is still nothing to compare with these adventures in terms of how thrilling they can be for a boy, with the perfect combination of exotic locales, courage, faithfulness to his friends and dog, and a lot of slapstick humour thrown in.

David Friesen and John Stowell in Storyteller, 1981

Getting a little tired of this guy?  Uh, well, this one, from 1981, is very Oregon-like and enjoyable with the adding of oboes and English Horn played by the great Paul McCandless resulting in tracks that are shapely and well formed.  If you love Oregon (count me in that set), you'll like this one.  In addition, Tom Harrell appears on some tracks on flugelhorn.

The new agey Spirit Lake:





A nice slice of intellectual chamber jazz.

More Friesen and Stowell in 1980's Other Mansions

Artist involvement is quite sparse as can be seen by the release page here, in fact, the two men play all the instruments.  But it was a worthy purchase as it is without a doubt the best in the series, coming together quite nicely with the mix of acoustic ethnic elements, chamber instruments (Friesen on flute) and the Townerish guitar playing of Stowell. The other LPs of the collaboration were posted here, btw.  Friesen himself was quite prolific, in his solo discography there are numerous other LPs seemingly of interest.

For example, Brethren Ascending sounds like the best (acoustic pieces) from recently featured artists James Vincent or Don Mock:

Back to David Friesen with 1979's Color Pool

On this first album from him the accompaniment includes David Coleman, Jr. on drums and Jerry Heldman on flute.  David himself in addition to playing bass, plays piano on some tracks and produced the whole.

An interesting introductory quotation for the traditionally jazz liner notes on the back (which were written by Mikal Gilmore, and present a bio of Friesen):

"The pool was filled with beautiful colors,and as the Lord dipped with the ladle to show me the brilliance of his creation, He said, ...  "Take from this pool, this spiritual substance... to fill the gift of music that I have given unto you... that you may go forth and show the glory of the Kingdom of God."

This album is more experimental than the others I've posted from him, as to be expected from the youthfulness of it.

Accessible is A5's Living Water piano tinkling:




More to come from him soon.