Gayle Moran's I Loved You Then, from 1979

 

Gayle Moran is Mrs. Chick Corea. She did sing on some of his albums with RtF, but not all of them -- I believe. Their first one of course featured Flora Purim, recall.  (I much prefer their hard-assed fusion sound rather than the vocal songs with Spanish influence.)

Anyways it's surprising she didn't release more albums, and her songs are definitely lacking any of that, being more based in classical music, evidently she plays the piano too. Her husband plays on some tracks, and Stanley Clarke, his formidable fusioneer bassist, appears as well. Other luminaries on here: Bunny Brunel, Al Jarreau, trumpeter Al Vizutti, Melissa Manchester. They are probably all scientologists, because surprisingly the little-known actress ex-wife of Tom Cruise, Mimi Rogers, does some finger snapping on one track too, perhaps trying to wake up L. Ron?  The music is definitely not fusion, it's just as you'd expect with classical-based piano-accompanied songwriting, but it tries very hard to be interesting and original with tenderness-- and succeeds often.

In any case, the title track just absolutely blew me away-- as a progressive songwriting type of epic it's almost as gorgeously transcendent as Joni Mitchell's masterpiece, Paprika Plains that I've mentioned so many times in these pages:

I was really sad to see there were no other albums apart from this one, but you could say it wasn't meant to come out in this year, 1979, it belongs to an earlier more naive time perhaps.  Now let's hope the church of scientology doesn't sue me. All hail Xenu.

Jean-Philippe Goude and Olivier Cote in Jeunes Annees 1976, by request

Discogged here.  I posted him before, in relation to the wonderful Gymnastique (1979) and Meli-Melodies (1981) albums, and Drone, which came in between, is the one he's most famous for I guess.  In later years he wrote more classical style chamber music which is also beautiful, usually involving a grand piano playing simple patterns with violins weaving in and out of it, but altogether not so varied as these early works. Having said that, I do really love De Anima, and La Divine Nature des Choses.  Even a couple of years ago he released Salon Noir, which is still quite similar.  The overall quite melancholy sound to his work is appealing to me, in particular at those times when I read the world news.

Olivier Cote on the other hand is the percussionist on this first album from 1976, but Goude wrote most of the music.  I think here the zeuhl influence is most prominent-- after all he was a member of the great Weidorje band, with Paganotti and Patrick Gauthier.  

Consider the second track called Piege (trap):

And how can you not admire the sheer oddness of his Melodie, especially with the odd synth sound buzzing there in the background:

David Sancious' 2004 Cinema

 

I'll assume everyone out there is well familiar with this American keyboardist's work. His 1970s fusion albums are all great and worth hearing, with a bit of wholesome new age influence that came to the forefront of course later on in the next decades. So this work too you could say is pretty new agey, with for ex. the ethnic percussion stuff, the electronic type buzzing, but the compositions are a step above the kind of drony one-chord-shows full of repetitive arpeggios you often hear in that genre.  In this regard it reminds me of the Dave Greenslade albums I posted recently, or the Matthias Frey Art Profiles from way back long ago here.

It's worth noting that Crimsoneer Tony Levin plays bass on this one too. When I mention interesting or elaborate composition, consider The Woman Theme, though the drum machine I think you might find, as I did, a little distracting:

Moon and Nightsky demonstrates the versatility and different dynamics here to be savoured:

Back to Philipsek, Part 3, with his Deepwater from 1977

 

Apologies both for poor album cover, and bitrate recording, which is of course not mine, found online.

More of the gypsy guitar type playing here compared to the great 1980 Short Stories.

The album starts like this, with Besides:

Overall, the album is more similar to the smoothly jazzy Bridge work, than Short Stories for sure.

More from Reynold Philipsek [1974 Sailor, 1976 Bridge 9086, Artifacts and Curiosities, Grey Chalet]

 

I posted his Sailor way back when and what a classic fusionary beauty that was, right?  The info on discogs is almost impossible to find, due to the commonness of the title, but it's on this page.  My post was back here, from almost 12 years ago. Today I've come back with a far superior rip that sounds almost like a different album it's so pleasing to hear, if you have the old one, please do replace it.

The 1976 Bridge 9086 was a bit disappointing in comparison and the later albums are a bit of a reversion to just what you'd expect, cf. Butterfly:

Sunbeam, from Artefacts and Curiosities: