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.

3 albums by Marc Guillermont, by request [1997 U Man, 2000 O World, 2004 Zappostrophe: Tribute to FZ]

 

Three albums from this French fusion guitarist, discogged here.  These feature instrumentals with a very typical late 1990s-2000s electric-guitar-based fusion style such as we've seen before, but interestingly some acoustic guitar pieces as well to alleviate the monotony a little.

The compositions on the Zappa homage album (2004) to which we direct our attention first and preferentially of course, are all from Marc, but they are great imitations of not only Zappa's style of writing but guitar-soloing as well.  For ex., Mothers of No Convention Part 1 legitimately sounds like something he might have penned and played:

Setting aside all criticism, I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed this release, and the impressive attempt at out-Zappaing the great composer.  I'll listen to that one over and over again for sure.

As for the 2 earlier fusion albums, they are quite what you'd expect from this time period in that same style of instrumental electric guitar-based fusion, frantically played in show-off virtuoso manner with numerous notes flying all over the place, for ex. I'm Late from the 2000 O World:

Angine de Poitrine in 2, FLACs limited time only

 

The band title refers to cardiac angina, the medical condition.  Information here (about the artist, not the diagnosis)

These guys, from Quebec, Canada, have specially built guitars which play quarter tones. (That is, compared to a normal guitar, there are frets halfway between to make the notes between semitones accessible for play.)  Way back when you might recall, or rather probably don't recall, I posted the 2 LPs from Americans Other Music, the best example I know of, and maybe the only one, involving progressive rock plus quarter tone music.  I can repost these if there's any interest.

My beloved Teo Macero, who I posted before on this blog, also made some quarter tone music, you can see here discogged.  Of course the music sounds very strange, and you could make a case that it's quite unnatural given the unnatural dissonances.  The reason it's unnatural for those who don't know is because the 12 notes of the scale are based on whole integer ratios, for example from C to G is a ratio of 3 to 2 (in vibration frequency), from C to C is double, etc.  Others would say it's a natural extension of atonal music or more dissonant music within the realm of the 12 note scale that we currently have.  But no doubt it does sound bizarre and not due to cultural conditioning, as you'd expect.  As well, it's difficult to make melodies with quarter tones, though I think Teo was most successful in that dept.  More straightforward is to do those angular Frippian repeated patterns, then build on those, which is what these guys do.

Despite the zeuhl-like titles to the tracks, which are all instrumental of course, there is not much Magma influence here, as well there are only the guitars and nothing more (though violins can also do quarter tones of course, having no frets) with repeat patterns and staccato arpeggios, plus a little bit of ethnic influence as you'd expect, because in some cultures eg Indian music these quarter tones are encountered, but not overly much.

From the first album, Tohogd:

From the second, Sarniez:

What about the masked disguise, what do people think about that schtick?

Longstanding Chilean band Congreso, Final Part [1992 Pichanga, 1992 Los Fuegos, 2022 Luz del Flash, and Santiago compilation]

 

Back to wikipedia (what a complex story they lived through!):

Conceptual music (1991-1994)

The 1992 album Pichanga was created together with the poet Nicanor Parra , for the Convention on the Rights of the Child .

Two concept albums, difficult for the general public to grasp but musically sophisticated, were their next works, both released in 1992. Pichanga was a work based on poems by Nicanor Parra , inspired by the Convention on the Rights of the Child , and involved institutions such as UNICEF , Raddabarnen of Sweden , Terranova of Italy , and the Chilean Ministry of Education . Los Fuegos del Hielo (The Fires of Ice) was composed for a modern ballet, referencing the extinction of indigenous groups in southern Chile such as the Kawésqar , Aonikenk , Yaghan , and Selk'nam . The work was performed at the Municipal Theater of Santiago , as well as at the Itálica Festival in Seville , Spain , and the Budapest Opera House in Hungary , among many other venues in Europe. Each of these works proved complex for the general public, confirming Congreso's limited commercial focus. While the group distanced itself from charts and sales lists, it maintained a loyal following.

To be honest, I didn't find the 1992 albums very complex or impressive, so I stopped listening at that stage.  Notwithstanding, a nice composition from 1992's Los Fuegos, Exterminio:

I wanted to listen to the most recent release, 2022's Luz del Flash, and in that one I was shocked to hear this lovely composition about someone with Alzheimer's, and I would love to know what the lyrics are saying:

I love how the basic verse part flows into a chorus section with completely broken up modulations of chords in different keys, almost unconnected to any specific tonic, as if imitating the fracturing of memory of that unfortunate and terrifying illness.

I believe that one song is a work of genius (among so many others in this oeuvre) and totally a fitting way to close out this review of Congreso, an unfortunately undeservedly unknown band.

Thank you to all those myriad members for the wonderful half a century of music here.

Longstanding Chilean band Congreso, Part 3 [1987 En Vivo Vol. 1 + 2, 1989 Para las arqueologos, 1990 Pure aire]

 

Again, from the wikipedia entry:

Sazo's return and the return to democracy (1985-1990)

Jorge Campos joined the group in 1986 and would participate for 20 years

A new album refreshed the band's style, becoming an essential reference point for the new Congreso: Estoy que me muero (1986), returning to a more popular sound, again with lyrics written by Sazo. Furthermore, drummer Sergio "Tilo" González, the band's leader, had recruited two young musicians from Fulano (keyboardist Jaime Vivanco and electric bassist Jorge Campos ), giving the band a third boost. Congreso leaned towards fusion with subtle touches of jazz , always in their own unique way, with songs like "Súbete a la vereda," "La isla del tesoro," and "Calipso intenso, casi azul," among others

The song "Calypso intenso, casi azul" was the emblem of the new stage, and the development and popularity coincided with the 1988 referendum that marked the exit of Augusto Pinochet from La Moneda, and the Chilean transition to democracy. In this context, Congreso edited Para los arqueólogos del futuro (1989), an album with some of the fastest-paced rhythms in the band's history, and in which they sang about racial freedom, they played, ironized and deployed all of their instrumental resources. According to Sazo, the album "touches on the ability to forget in Latin America, which ends with the dead, especially with those of this era." Songs like "En todas las esquinas" or "El trapecista" reached high radial diffusion, especially the former which became one of the iconic themes of the arrival of democracy. The album was the first in the group's history to reach the category of "gold" (for 15,000 copies sold). Congreso retained the formula on the next disc, Aire Puro (1990), but the mass echo was, this time, more moderate. The success of this period include themes that echoed those living with passion the Chilean transition to democracy, like in the song "Aire puro", which allowed them to participate in the legendary concert Desde Chile... un abrazo a la esperanza of Amnesty International in 1990 alongside renowned international artists such as Sinéad O'Connor, Sting, Peter Gabriel, New Kids on the Block, Jackson Browne, Luz Casal, Wynton Marsalis, Rubén Blades, and Inti-Illimani, among others.^[2]

etc.

En Vivo, from 1987, is well recorded and presents some original songs, I believe, but I haven't listened closely enough to be totally sure.

Para los Arqueologos continues nicely in the same progressive folk vein, not quite as insistently original however, consider Un Sueno Perdido:

However with 1990's Pure Aire, they begin to incorporate new age into the ethnic folk mix, and I believe from then on there is more and more in that vein, with a gradual abandonment of the fusion and progressive chamber that to me is so appealing and in fact addictive.  Was the return to 'democracy' a negative influence for them perhaps, who thrived under the former repressive regime?

For example, Musica para tu regreso: