Gene Harris, Part 1: 1974 Astral Signal, 1975 Nexus

 

Quite a huge and extensive discography, especially when you check out the bands he played with, principally The Three Sounds here.  For himself alone, the description:

American jazz pianist and keyboard player -- born 1 September 1933 in Benton Harbor, Michigan, USA

-- died 16 January 2000 in Boise, Idaho, USA.

The music is quite light and approachable, enjoyable fusion / melodic soul jazz, all or mostly instrumental, with little intensity, a lot of groove and keyboarding (I mean that in comparison to Chick Corea's Romantic Warrior, for ex.).

From 1974's Astralsignal, Summer (the first time):

From 1975's Nexus, Sauda:

Note that someone requested his 1984 album Nature's Way which I was not able to find-- anyone have it perchance?

Joel Horwitz with The Planets, recorded 1978, By Request

 

Minimal information on this one here on discogs.  Seems to have been recorded in 1978 which makes sense based on the quality of the music.  Very interesting find though, and beautifully played too.

I have to apologize first off because the tracks all run into each other, but because of my acquired attention deficit I won't listen to a 20 minute long rip without fast forward, so I split the individual pieces up, sometimes not quite successfully at the joins or transitions.

A2, Sol: present a great introduction to the rest of the work, which to be honest is quite similar to the scifi atmosphere of Cybernation Dark Plane:

Track B2's Jupiter, with vocals, really knocks it out of the prog ballpark (wherever that ballpark may be but it's for sure not crowded in the stands):

B4's Uranus is quite lovely with its incandescent, synthy shimmering chord changes, reminding me of my fave Alan Hawkshaw at his greatest:

As usual we must mourn the demotion of poor Pluto, who is no longer considered a bona fide planet. (There are too many similar sized bodies occuping the same orbit as him.)

Thanks so much to OC for requesting this treasure and I hope everyone out there is able to enjoy it.

Steve Carr and Brent Brace With David Benoit & Luther Hughes - Into The Reeds (LP rip, FLAC limited time)

 

I posted David Benoit earlier here, and I thoroughly enjoyed his light proggy fusion style, similar to so many others reviewedin the past like Neil Larsen, Full Moon, etc. He handles most of the composition here, as was the case of last post's Joe Cool.

Overall information here for this LP.

First track, called Dreams:

By the way, some beautiful surprise rips coming up soon after this one.

Inner Drive's Oasis, from Russia 2014, by request

 

Profile:

Inner Drive is a progressive rock band from Moscow formed in 2006. The band started out as a trio of keyboards, bass and drums but later expanded with instruments like violin, flute and guitars and recorded their debut album in 2014 recommended to fans of eclectic fusion.

A review from progarchives in my opinion doesn't quite do it justice:

Inner Drive from Russia, this totally unknown band even in their country released the debut in 2014 named Oasis. Formed around 2006 they come up with a beautiful art work ,but the music is no less chalenging and beautiful in same time. The album is entirely instrumental and is on eclectic side, from symphonic prog to prog folk and even some fusion moments are present all done with skills and good taste, keyboards, flute, the violin parts, all are well organized delivering some intresting chops from start to finish. The head of the band Sergey Bolotov gathered around him talented musicians who know to handle the instruments, creating a good towards great release in today prog realm. All in all intresting album by this russian band, I think they need far more exposure. 3 stars rounded to 3.5.

First of all I would give it far more stars. No question the composition shows a very deep musical education, but I would prefer to describe it as European chamber music with fusion, rhythm section, and prog influences.  Many tracks feature acoustic piano plus violin and flute for example, so recalling the type of stuff later Gotic did, in their second unreleased album, or more recently the great band Kotebel.  On this blog there have been many posts like this, most recently the Japanese band TEE or the French Syrinx, or Aurora Clara, or my old favourite is Brazilian Ramo.  Amongst the classics from the 1970s, this harks back to the French masterpieces Carpe Diem and Shylock.

If you take a look at the tracklist you'll for sure notice the one called Inspired by Pink Floyd:

 

Not sure what is the inspiration here, it's a bit confusing.

The title track:

You can really appreciate the beauty of the combination of electric piano (Fender Rhodes?) with acoustic flute soloing above, plus digital strings giving it a kind of video game theme music sound by the end, on something called Transience:

Sometimes a very deep and sentient delicatesse permeates the performance, which is really evocative and transcendantly played.  In the end I would say that if you are familiar with Kotebel's work, they are most similar to that Spanish band.  A wonderful suggestion without a doubt for me, and hopefully for many others out there.  Too bad there isn't more output from them. Thanks again for requesting.

A bunch of Rob Mounsey: 1987 Local Color (with Steve Kahn), 1989 Dig, 1993 Back in the Pool, 1998 You Are Here

 

Information here.

American keyboardist, producer, arranger, composer, musician, and conductor, born 2 December 1952 in Berea, Ohio, USA. Owner of Flying Monkey Productions, Inc., Flying Monkey Studios, and Flying Monkey Music.

I checked out his stuff because he was responsible for some of the great compositions on the preceding post, Joe Cool.  

Local Color (from 1987) with guitarist Steve Kahn comes together very nicely, and is quite similar to the stuff I posted from Khan before here and here.  He sounds at times a lot like Dave Grusin, in his later, early 1980s phase, his piano playing featuring a lot of suspended chords and quite inventive and original changes too.  The delicacy of Blue Rose is very reminiscent of classic 1970s Euro-fusion:

Later albums begin to have more of the classic 1980s new age and Pat Metheny / Brazilian influences which may or may not be appealing to you.  From Dig, however, consider a truly lovely track that closes it out, Gratitude:

1993's Back in the Pool starts to sound very much more and overwhelmingly like Pat Metheny.  The Sand Covers Everything:

Nonetheless, there are great ideas throughout, scattered amongst the commercial throwaways. 

As late as 1998's You Are Here, Still Life with Mockingbird:

There's a lot to enjoy here for sure. The standout is Local Color from 1987.