Nothin' Sirius's Monkey Business

Another nice category IV 'fusion with progressive moments' album, dipping its toes quite a bit into the lofty category II (pure progressive throughout), there are zappaesque elements here and there, especially in the last track called Bolshoi Blues Waltz, available here on this page.
Information (sparse) here.

Trumpeter / Conductor Jeff Tyzik from 1980 to 1985

As mentioned by a commenter, these albums resemble the two from Serry-- at least, superficially.  They are very much cutting edge fusion as you would have expected in the year 1980, very light, approachable, commercial, lacking the muscle of electric guitars and the dual-instrument riffs of the past and completely without the emotional depth of Euro-fusion.  Not a lot of progressive either, we're not talking James Vincent here.  On the other hand the first album features quite a few good tracks and interesting compositions, with a couple more (i.e. fewer than the first) on the second, and then virtually nothing listenable as we move farther into the eighties approaching the decade's halfway point just past the Orwellian non-starter, though he didn't give up on making music past that point as you can see from his discography.

There is an oddly complete bio, almost bookish and nonwikipedian on discogs, which begins as follows:

Born in Hyde Park, New York, Jeff Tyzik first fell in love with music at the age of eight when he saw a drum and bugle corps march by in a local parade. "For my ninth birthday, I said, 'I want a bugle!'" recalled Tyzik. But when he opened the case, he was crushed. "It wasn't a bugle. It was a cornet!" 

He quickly forgot his initial disappointment, however, and began studying cornet with a teacher who had performed in the Goldman Memorial Band in the 20's. He immediately excelled. "I was always extremely serious about music, even at a young age. I was frustrated with the other kids when they didn't take it as seriously as I did." recalled Tyzik, adding, "I've always given all of my energy to anything I'm passionate about." 

Tyzik's teachers and friends began pushing him to audition for the Eastman School of Music. Tyzik recalls, "Eastman was a pivotal place in my development because I was exposed to legends there, like Ray Wright. When I was a kid, once in a while my mom would take me to Radio City Music Hall where Ray was the conductor of the Radio City Music Hall Orchestra. I met Ray years later when he was a professor of jazz studies at the Eastman School and I was a student. He became a mentor to me. He knew volumes about music and the music business. He treated all of his students as professionals. What I do today, I directly link to my studies with him." 

Moving on to the music, from the first album the standout track is The Farthest Corner of my Mind, which also served as the title of a compilation later in 1986 (after only 4 official records!), which you can hear here:




From the 2nd, Circe, here.

Games - Stargazer (1977)

As discogs so succintly says, 

California Rock Band, Released one album in 1977 before disbanding after the death of their bassist, David Miller.

It amazes me how many US albums we will post in the next 2-3 months, perhaps longer if the supply doesn't run out, all from the period 1974 to 1984, basically either prog rock, prog fusion, or straight pop or rock, jazz or fusion with progressive moves (the four categories).  Most of them you will never have known existed.  In fact I didn't either until friends introduced me to these many lost artists.

This very very obscure band's one-off LP starts off with a kinda circus type chromatic pattern with quite gorgeous female vocals from that very beautiful blonde on the verso scan.  Usual comments about how each of the male musicians must have had a hand in opening that shirt down to her innie belly button and even further on down.  She is the only vocalist, so the whole reminds me a bit of the Canadian Sky High posted earlier.  For those old enough, I'll just mention that circuses were very popular back in the seventies, countless songs reference taking the kids to those circular tents.  Luckily, they are truly a thing of the past today except in Las Vegas where you can go to the grand old 19th c. antique hotel Circus Circus for an idea of what used to transpire back then: terrifying, almost nightmarish clowns-- no kid wouldn' t have been afraid of them, especially when equipped with a huge knife wherewith to stab people-- mangy bears being tortured to stand, elephants with spindly wrinkly legs who performed tricks like picking up sticks with their trunks, roaring tigers beaten to a pulp in order to get them to jump through hoops, magicians performing tricks like pulling money out of your wallet, the all-homosexual trapeze troupes, the Mussolini-like bald ringmaster with that whip that reminded you of your parents when they took off their belt to beat you for not eating spinach-- those wonderful memories will remain with us even as the experience has faded into oblivion, with few to miss it.  But behind the scenes of course was the most terrifying aspect of the circuses (which rivalled the Roman amphitheatres for cruelty and sadism): the carnies.  These were 'professionals' who traveled from one city to another, setting up the tents, working for the 'entertainment', all the while stoned on stimulants such as meth or more cheaply and more likely household intoxicants such as model airplane glue or vapours from open gasoline tanks, or DEET insect repellant, having unlimited promiscuous sex with each other and each other's children thereby creating new species of deformed humans who then grew up to perform in the freak shows (bearded ladies, midgets, etc.) that were a 'sideshow' of the whole spectacle.  In this respect they were as a closed-in world unto themselves, like Biosphere 2, but far more interesting.  And productive.
It's amazing how much we've lost from the seventies.

Anyways back to the matter at hand.  Here's the aforementioned circus track to give you an idea of the music-- not necessarily the best one:

John Serry's two 'solo' albums Exhibition (1979) and Jazziz (1980)

That beautiful photo of a narrow street in presumably New York City is just priceless: portrait of the artist as a young man in bell bottom slacks.  So here's the keyboardist of Auracle's 1st LP, viz., John Serry, Jr., setting out on his own solo journey with plenty of fresh ideas and energy and invention.
I love how finding one good album will often lead to discovering more material from related artists that is worth hearing.  This sentence unfortunately fails to apply to a majority of posts on this blog but thankfully is fully applicable to today's.  In fact these two nicely complement the Auracle two making a pretty package of quite accessible, yet often brilliant, late-day fusion in that typical US style that has been demonstrated endlessly on these pages: the so-called categories 2 and 4, to use the now universal throughout the world category description.  Of course there is a basis of commercial jazz-rock to appeal to the masses, but you will see that John manages to make almost every track or composition unusual or unique in some way or another, either with odd chords or unexpected riffing that takes it beyond just about anything I'd expect to hear in the ordinary metropolitan summertime jazz festivals you'll see throughout the world full of senior citizens and cheap families looking for free concerts.

From the 1979 album, a track called Sabotage uses a relatively trite intro of C minor arpeggios then adds on a polytonal bass line and then flies into the stratosphere with a completely out of key soprano sax / guitar riff. If you listen carefully, note the interesting musical instruments used in the arrangement throughout the song:





From the second 1980 album, Song for You recalls so much the sweet Simon and Bard albums I've so cherished over the years, also may be Tim Eyermann's work in the later releases, like my favourite tune "The One that got Away."





The melody keeps on going through such odd changes and permutations from its relatively simple major beginning, it almost hypnotizes me to listen to this song.  The pattern itself reminds me of a track from that masterpiece of category 2 fusion Skywhale -World at Mind's End an album that I pray everyone already knows well.

Auracle's City Slicker (1979)

For this follow up to Glider the keyboardist (John Serry, who set out on his own) was replaced by Biff Hannon.  Most of the remainder perform songwriting duties on various tracks.

The first side b track is shockingly beautiful, reminiscent to me of the best of our old British fusion discovery Simon and Bard.  The combination of fusion excitement and speed, classical education for interest and the warmth of the instruments (with the flugelhorn lead and synth soloing in the middle passage) is just killer for me:

More music like this please everyone.  A category 2 on its own there.  It's called City of Penetrating Light.  Note that it's the drummer Ron Wagner who wrote this, with his only other entry on discogs for a VA FM radio rock album from 1976.  Odd?  The next track, also his, is equally interesting but more jazzy.  Those two, well worth the price of admission (a few dollars).

Category IV, jazz-rock with some progressive moves, but overall, a strong album, perhaps due to the democratic engagement of all the musicians.  I mean, even the Samba track which closes out the album is way beyond the standard Brazilian garbage we are used to from so many useless conventional jazz records.

Desperately trying to be both listenable and creative, these guys acknowledged the popularity of fuzak while at the same time trying to appeal to the intelligent listener looking for original thinking.