Wednesday 24 October 2018

Austrian composer Peter Wolf and the masterpiece Tutti (1980), plus 2 from the band Gipsy Love (and more)












Well, let's not focus on the top cover wherein the composer tries to impress us with his Beethovenisch scalp credentials-- and in fact, if we really wanted amusement, consider what happened only two years later on this album, or later in those inimitable eighties here.  (Also note how all the above album covers are black and white.)

From discogs:

Pianist and keyboardist, producer, composer and arranger (born 1952 in Vienna). 
Wolf studied classical piano at the Vienna's Conservatory of Music and won the European Jazz Festival as a solo pianist at age 16. He came to America in his early 20s and began playing keyboards for Frank Zappa. [Wow!! - Editor]  He was studio keyboardist and arranger from 1980 to 1985 and started his production career in 1985 with the Starship album Knee Deep In The Hoopla. 
Wolf has scored a number of major motion pictures and also written and performed on 6 of his own albums for the Polydor and WEA labels.  He co-produced and arranged the Commodores' #1 album Nightshift, Heart's biggest selling album entitled Heart, Go West's album Indian Summer, The Pointer Sisters' album Only Sisters Can Do That, Chicago's album The Stone of Sisyphus and Thomas Anders' album Souled.

Note that Allmusic also has a brief bio.

On the 1980 masterpiece album-- and I don't say that lightly, believe me-- we have 5 stunning progressive fusion tracks, one after the other incomparably gorgeous, recalling the American producer/fusioneer Arif Mardin (and his 1974 Journey one of my all-time favorite albums), famous French library artist Laurent Petitgirard and his epic suite-- or more recently, the composer Doug Lofstrom.  What I can say is that every minute of this record has something of interest, something new, some odd chord change, some completely unique melody, unusual instrumentation with acoustic and electronic mixed up, and it all combines into one totally coherent whole from beginning to end.

Usually when I hear a song called Bolero I quickly approximate the dextro second digit to the fast forward button, but I was unable to do anything with it this time (perhaps for the first time in musical history with a 'bolero'): check out how from an incongruous intro with backwards-played tape, he manages to create sustained interest over the persistent rhythm with sounds and chords that constantly shape-shift, obtaining plenty of assistance from the synthesizer, rather than repeat a hundred times until your patience is so exhausted that by the final chord you want to smash a fist into the speakers:





Unbelievable.

On a track called Credo you'll be pleasantly surprised by the National-Health-like female vocal harmonies (unfortunately, artificial). 

The opener, the Hollywood track, with melody played by synths, compares favorably with some of the best orchestral fusion I've ever heard in my life:





Going back to the beginning of his discography now, for the first solo release from 1969 A Change in my Life I think we have a very inauspicious start, made all the worse (for me) by the fact that copies of it are selling in the hundreds on discogs. Then, on the Gorilla album, he joins forces with a very familiar artist (for us on this blog at least), viz., fellow Austrian (guitarist) Karl Ratzer (I posted a slew of his albums a couple of years ago, all are worth hearing), the lovely Tom der Clown:





And I might add, lucky for us the fashion for clowns (and circuses) is over given the inherent and inevitable creepiness of clowns. Except, of course, in the genre of horror movies, where they surely belong.

Looking more closely at Mr. Wolf's discography I then realized both he and Ratzer where members of the early seventies Chicago-like or Blood, Sweat and Tears-like band called Gipsy Love, who put out two very nice and original vocal releases.  Viennese Winter from their second album is a Wolf composition, and I always loved / was amused by the intro about 'the spaceship, floatin' above my head:'





Quite a bit of progressive material is to be found on these 2 albums throughout the otherwise pedestrian pop soul, you will see.

And I'll leave the 1975 album, the poetic and incomparable Andre Heller's music for lovers (and loosers [sic]), for you to discover on your own...
It seems that, like the great arranger Claus Ogerman, he didn't write a whole lot of music but what he did put out was magnificent, perhaps because he distilled so many great ideas in such a small body of work.







8 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  2. What I've heard so far is very impressive. Thanks for these.

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  3. It' s been a while that I didn't visit your blog and I'm such a moron because the albums you share with us is pure fire!This record is a masterpiece indeed!

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  4. Please, can you re-upload Gipsy Love and Tutti?
    Thank you.

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    Replies
    1. gypsy love
      https://www.sendspace.com/pro/dl/nn5my4
      tutti
      https://www.sendspace.com/pro/dl/b2zw9l

      Delete
  5. Peter Wolf, 2 earlier albums:
    https://www.sendspace.com/pro/dl/nmpz2d

    ReplyDelete