Opa, from Uruguay in 3 albums: Back Home the Lost Sessions 1975, Goldenwings (1976) and Magic Time (1977)

 

Randomly found this thanks to the 'suggestions' (also random) on discogs of similar albums.  From there:

Fusion band from Uruguay. They mix a lot of South American cultural elements, sometimes adding funky and samba type grooves. The band name is sometimes spelled OPA but it's not an abbreviaton or acronym, making Opa a correct spelling ; the sleeve of OPA - Magic Time and other sources confirm this. "Opa is a Uruguayan slang greeting, a sort of "Hello" it says in Angel Atienza's liner notes for OPA - Back Home: The Lost 1975 Sessions.

For those curious, the band comprises 3 founding Fattoruso brothers (visible on this release page), two are on drums and keyboards. These 2 are responsible for most of the compositional credits, I think.  Note the involvement too of the great Hermeto Pascoal (flute, percussion) on the first.  Also note the drummer, Jorge Fattoruso, played in the later 1970s with Flora Purim.

Their music is so similar to other 1970s smooth, warm, tropical and perky latin fusion outfits, eg. Crucis, Tantra, Nuevas Aires, Sacba from this blog, or to hark back to one of the classics I still love and enjoy and return to periodically, Caldera which hailed from NYC.  Very similar to the latter, with some US influence I believe.

Pieces / Goodbye is so heartful it really pulls you in:

And the second album, a little less interesting, closes out with a nice longer track called Malisimo which reminds me just a little of the glorious and incomparable Argentinian Alas band:

Surprisingly there were unreleased tracks from 1975 that were subsequently dug up, and despite the not ideal sound, these turned out to be quite enjoyable, tragically left off any legit LP release, but here we are so many years later able to listen and appreciate today.  The early rendition of Goldenwings, title track of their first of course, is even better than the official version, being more raw, an unusual thing to see generally speaking. They do a cover version of the Jacksons' Never can say goodbye which is a little annoying, but really the sole annoyance to put up with.

The (unreleased) track called Casa Forte is so good, it's surprising it got left out:

Really nice, randomly found stuff. Another surprise!

World Music Meeting, 1986

Similar to other ethnic fusion albums posted here before, the genre should be familiar to you.  Unfortunately it's a bit infiltrated by free jazz or too much improvising in my view, but the playing is wonderful. Information here.  Note the shocking lineup, with Hozan (Houzan) Yamamoto, Charlie Mariano, Trilok Gurtu, etc. musicians definitely from all over the world, East and West.

Again and Again as a sample track, this was composed by Colin Walcott and is in memoriam to him as well (he passed away at the tragically young age of 39 from an accident):

Swiss fusion band Intergalactic Maiden Ballet in 3 albums [1987 to 1994]

The first album had a black cover at first, which was changed to the one with the colored figures falling, perhaps an improvement, while the square crate with chickens inside cover was reduced in quality and dimensions I believe for later, while the third features a purely generic image which looks like it could have been AI in the days before it even existed.

The music is very typical late funky fusion, all instrumental, with a kind of chaotic riffery on saxes and guitars.  A bit like a more wild and unrestrained version of my usual touchpoint the Brecker Bros and Step Ahead, who were so good at writing compelling and original, one-of-a-kind  funky fusion compositions in my opinion.

One track that does sound like them a lot, is Trap Dance, from the second album with John Zorn:

For the third album, which is perhaps the best of the 3, Blow:

Astonishing American Jazz Arranger/Composer George Russell in Events Part 2, more albums of note [1972 Living Time, 1982 Live in an American Time Spiral]

 

Living Time, with ultra-famous jazz pianist Bill Evans, is not quite as amazing as Vertical Forms.  I think if you know and are familiar with Claus Ogerman's collaboration with him called Symbiosis (1974), this definitely suffers in comparison.

Nonetheless it does have some moments of great beauty, but quite a bit of filler, surprisingly.

Living Time, Event VIII begins with solo Evans playing quite complex modern music, when suddenly the whole orchestra jumps in with a chaotic Alban-Bergian mess that sounds almost improvised:

On the other hand the live album Live in an American Time Spiral, in my opinion, has some stunning composition again very effectively melding big band and electric instruments, and very intricate at that. And a wonderful cover pencil drawing to boot (by Roy Smith).

There are only 3 tracks, so they're a bit too long to sample here.  But here's the 10 minute long D.C. Divertimento, which was "composed for the John F. Kennedy Jazz Festival held in Washington D.C., in 1962."  It starts off slowly but really gets into a crazy sound later on, like a bizarre radioactive mutation of a jazz chart:

The stunner on this one though is the 20 minute first track, called Time Spiral.  It has such an original oddness to its melding of electric piano plus acoustic piano, and later abrupt electric chord dissonances with furious percussion welded to the standard horn section, that it really made my jaw drop and everything else too.  Outstandingly appreciated too is the fact every 5 minutes it completely changes directions, rather than just throwing in a bunch of random jazz solos to fill 'er up like an empty gas tank.

Imagine if Miles Davis and Stravinsky had collaborated together to write out a concerto for electric piano / flute / sax...

I'm reminded too of my old favourite unknown work, Don Sebesky's Bela Bartok homage, here, and in some places, this other past Melodiya favorite of mine.

Incidentally, for those curious, the electronic keyboard albums I found, because they're entirely improvised, quite meandering.

Astonishing American Jazz Arranger/Composer George Russell in Events Part 1 [Vertical Form VI, 1977]

 

I was very surprised to find this one, randomly looking through discographies.  Let's start with the brief discogs bio:

George Allan Russell. Born: 23rd June 1923 Cincinnati, Ohio, USA. Died: 27th July 2009 Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

American composer, jazz musician (primarily on the piano but also mastered the drums), bandleader and music theorist.

From wiki:

George Allen Russell (June 23, 1923 – July 27, 2009) was an American jazz pianist, composer, arranger and theorist. He is considered one of the first jazz musicians to contribute to general music theory with a theory of harmony based on jazz rather than European music, in his book Lydian Chromatic Concept of Tonal Organization (1953).^[1]

...

Two very similar jazz 'third stream' (combining jazz plus classical) arrangers are Gil Evans (of Miles Davis fame) and Teo Macero in his earlier (nonfusion) Blue Note days.  (I read a bit about Russell's Lydian concept, but I don't think it's really interesting, particularly since his own actual musical style is heavily indebted to European classical composers like Strav.)

George's first few albums were very jazzy, along the lines of early Gil Evans from Birth of the Cool, mixed with classical composition from the 20th century.  So stuff like the Othello Ballet Suite (1970)  I wouldn't say are interesting to the fusion fan.  However the 1972 album with Bill Evans called Living Time introduces a more fusionary, electric sound, which really gets fully developed in the 1981 album Vertical Form.  This last one is definitely his best (at least from our viewpoint, circling like a vulture above the carcasses of fusion, classical, and jazz-rock), in terms of its high energy and interesting dynamics.

Consider the opening Event (surprisingly) called Event I:

The compositional level is quite advanced, with really intricate polyrhythms and polytonalities, but the electricity of the instruments makes it all easy to absorb, unlike the earlier albums where similar structures get muddled up among the horns and brass sounds.  Even though the thumping brass chords are highly dissonant, the overall structure, pushed through by the percussion, feeds into a kind of crazy heavy narrative that I find really compelling, despite its being programmatic music without any reference to the 'real world.'  It's a music that stands on its own merits, in other words, like any programmatic composition with an abstract title (eg, symphony no. 1).

The wiki entry for this work states, accurately I believe:

The Allmusic review by Ron Wynn awarded the album four stars and states "This is a magnificent and critically acclaimed large band recording with the Swedish Radio Jazz Orchestra playing compositions and arrangements by George Russell, who also conducted. His music, with its intricate, unpredictable, and keenly structured pace, textures, and layers, are expertly played".^[1] The Rolling Stone Jazz Record Guide gave it five stars and called it "a live orchestral recording that captures Russell's innovative orchestration techniques in a stunning extended work".^[2]

Vertical Form VI is a live album by George Russell recorded in 1977 and released on the Italian Soul Note label in 1981, featuring a performance by the Swedish Radio Jazz Orchestra.^[3]

...

I've listened to this over and over again in the last few weeks, and can't get over how well written this is, and how deeply original and complex, while still compellingly emotional.