Steve Eliovson's Dawn Dance from 1981 [FLAC limited time]

 

There is an interesting story behind this one, which I'll put at the end.  I found it while looking through the discography of the very interesting uber-ECM protege Collin Walcott, who is also on this album.

Steve Eliovson was a South African guitarist, as you can see here, and this was the only LP he released.  His style is ridiculously similar to Ralph Towner, which is for sure a good thing always.

Earth End:

The story:

The Quiet Funeral of a Great Guitarist - Steve Eliovson - Born: 1954 - Died: 15 Mar 2020

There are perhaps many thousands of people around the planet who want to know about Steve Eliovson and what has happened to him. We have decided to put this video up of his funeral for all those who want to know. Had they been given advance warning, I'm sure many would have been at his funeral on this day and to say farewell to an enigmatic and brilliant musician.

The 17th of March was a sad and strange day. I received a message from my friend Herby Opland that Steve Eliovson had died and that his funeral was this very day at 12 noon at the West Park Jewish Cemetery, Johannesburg. The news took me back a few years to when I actively spent a few weeks trying to track the man down. I had made up my mind that if he was alive, I was going to find him. I failed utterly. The closest I got was to a cousin of his in America who then asked me if I had any news.

My desire to find Steve was driven by an obsessive curiosity as to how and why such a talented and awe-inspiring musician could simply disappear off the face of the earth. For a brief moment, we had become friends in the mid 1980's after he walked into my gig in Sea Point and asked if he could sit down with me. I was taking a break and eating my supper at the time. He asked me point-blank if I remember a guitarist by the name Steve Eliovson and because a few years earlier I had watched him perform two incendiary performances with jazz guitarist Johnny Fourie, I immediately recognised him. He came out to my place in Muizenberg twice and we got to jam a little together and then he was gone. I never saw him or heard of him again. When I looked again he had so successfully removed himself from the grid that he was utterly invisible.

Steve's one and only album titled 'Dawn Dance', (ECM), recorded with the late Collin Walcott in 1981, has in the interim, become a highly-acclaimed collectors item, revered by maybe hundreds of thousands of people across the world. Many of whom voice their desire to know just what happened to the mysterious guitarist and why he never recorded again.

I have only been able to fill in tiny bits of detail. He went to the USA and was lined up to record a second album with ECM when he broke his leg badly. This put him out of action for a while. There may have been complications. There are tales of him squatting with a friend and having to store his guitars which were never reclaimed. How he survived over there I do not know. There is another tale that he came back to SA and tried being a farmer for awhile in KZN.

Today I went to his funeral. Myself and my friend Herby, outside of the minimum ten Jewish men required at any Jewish burial, were the only people there who knew who he was. There was no family, no friend, not a single soul who knew and loved him.

Steve had died two days earlier in the Johannesburg General, he had end-stage cancer. He had been living in a flatlet in Berea for some months. Where he was before that is hazy. These flats are owned by the Jewish Benevolent Society and are made available to those who have fallen on hard times. Steve lived there quietly, never once reaching out to old friends and family. This astoundingly talented master-musician gave us a brief flurry of his brilliance and then for reasons still unknown, walked away from it all so quietly that there was no-one outside of Herby, myself and ten strangers at his funeral today.

RIP Steve Eliovson, we did not and will not forget you brother.

Tony Cox

Wow, isn't that something?  Worth listening to just for the sake of his story...

New Sound Shakuhachi from 1978

Not sure if this was requested or if I came across it in connection with another artist.  The album's information is here, it was already a double LP back in the day, but recently rereleased on CD with double the amount of music, more than 2.5 hours worth.  To my ears though, it sounds very similar after a while, some pentatonic folk melody is developed over funk or jazzy beats, like library music, but then is just followed by improvising without much structure. The 2 artists are composer Kiyoshi Yamaya and the shakuhachi (= bamboo flute) player, Kifu Mitsuhashi.

A typically random generic sample called Sado Okesa:

Hopefully you don't share the same sentiment as me that the length and quantity of this is a bit punishing.  Happy Daylight Savings hour to everyone.

Xalph's new Xessander's Present [no download]

 

I was so happy to hear about this release of potentially previously unheard tracks.  In fact, for those well acquainted with this band, both the old collection and the more recent LP release cover almost all the 10 tracks here.  There are only 3 therefore that I haven't heard (although some of the compositions are given a different treatment on this collection): one is the recent electronic track referred to as the "digital bonus track" that is, it's an electronic synth adagio, and the 2 others are absolutely sublime progressive zeuhl stuff.  On the release's Soleil Zeuhl page you can hear them, numbers 7 and 8: Ter and In Memoriam etc.

So it's worth purchasing for those 2 extra tracks which didn't appear on the whole lot once discussed back here on this blog...  

In some way, I think these guys were absolutely exemplary in their style, and better than Magma (sorry to say)...  What an absolute and total joy to listen to this, especially with the remastering.  I do pray a live recording appears, and soon as possible too, as suggested by the Soleil Zeuhl site.

The unbelievable talent of this band, and their ability to craft such complex, creative and interesting music, just leaves me speechless, totally.  Again as I used to say, why is this not played in concert halls instead of the old standards like Stravinsky, when it is just as compelling if not more?

And thanks to the commenter who pointed this out, without whom I would probably never have known about this.

Hawaiian duo Olomana in 3 albums (1976 to 1980)

 

The first 2 albums were requested to be reupped, they were ripped and posted 10 years ago here.  Seagull cover for the first one is still amazing to me.

Information databased here.  Now the third album from 1980, similar in style completely, is available too, so I threw that one in.  Hawaiian folk music of course, but similar in sound to the more simple Seals and Crofts songs.  From the first album, So Free:

Sample from the third album, We are the Children:

Cox Orange 2 LPs + 1 EP, by request

 

Danish funk-fusion band similar to so many others we've encountered from Northern Europe, but heavy on the bass and funky rhythms, less on the fusionary forms.  Like Placebo siamese twinned with Lafayette Afro Rock Band.  All instrumental, sometimes a little too simplistic for me with a handful of chords and not much progressive development.  Or you could say it's as if the Brecker Bros and their atonal funk had been told to tone it down and behave.  Needless to report, there are the usual latin styles too.

Information here.  From the 1978 ST album, the oddness of the riff from Always Public appealed to me:

I notice the 1985 album is missing, anyone have it to share?  It's hit or miss whether or not it will be worth hearing of course, given the late year.

From the second, Sivsko Disko:

To my surprise there is another band with the same name, but this time a German punk band, so that explains the 1989 EP Hypnotized, which I threw in for fun.