The Nordic Jazz Quintet, 1975

The band was mentioned in connection with our Pop Liisa / Jazz Liisa expedition.  This quintet made one legit LP in 1975 with 3 long tracks, and I won't repeat my lack of patience with those.  Note that the band did include the famed guitarist Jukka Tolonen who appeared in a few of the Pop Liisa / Jazz Liisas, and the quintet as well in the same year recorded for that radio series.  He's rounded out here by bassist Kjell Jansson, percussionist Petur Östlund, flute and sax player Knut Riisnæs and pianist Ole Kock Hansen.

In fact, the long track on side a was played at least partly on the jazz liisa a side of things too.  Here on the official 1975 released LP, the "Nordjazz Suite" includes only a few minutes of composed music, three at the beginning and three more at the end, with the remainder a long and boring series of improvisations, so if they are attempting to represent Scandinavia as boring, they've got me convinced.  Specifically, there's a wonderful fusionary flute intro with ascending electric piano chords followed by some quick improvs, then, as if they were too excited to get back to noodling, or too stoned to realize they had to play a song, there are more and more drawn out improvs with bass for 4 minutes, a wailing sax for 4 more, a meanderingly aimless guitar like a drunkard's walk for another 4 and then the absolute abysmal torture of a several minute long percussion-only solo including a bunch of irritating grade-school triangles I wish I could have torn from his hands.  Finally then an acoustic piano returns to save the day to close out the song with a more tender ballad.   And that's the first side.

The other two tracks were written by Tolonen and are altogether not too bad, I'll sample you the track called Hysterical by him:

Requested Albums: Gipsy River Queen (1979), Smut The Other Half (1979) and Duesenberg Setsuna (1977-1978)

We interrupt the regularly scheduled programming to bring you the previously postponed State of the Union Address.  Here it is:

"It sucks."

Unlike the music here.  From Germany Gipsy's River Queen (aka No. 1), from Japan, the previously unreleased band Duesenberg, and from the States, The Other Half's Smut.  Note that despite the genre descriptors which so often describe this as prog rock for the purposes presumably of hiking up the price of LPs, there is no real progressive content here, but if you're looking for basic hard rock, all 3 albums are great.

The Other Half, hailing from Northwest Ohio, made only one album unfortunately, starting with a long instrumental power chord intro a la Song Remains the Same (I mean the song, from Led Zep's 5th album) and an exposition of the, presumably imaginary here, debauched life of the rock star, the energy never lets up all the way through to the end.  From the second track (title track Smut), the wonderful line stuck out for me:
"she never liked tractors, so they call her a hoe..."
which probably couldn't be used in hip hop today due to its archaic reference...
I guess they fancied themselves wonderful lyricists, because on closer listen, the following 'poem:'

I like little pussy
her coat is so warm
and if I don't hurt her
she'll do me no harm
etc.

Finally, they don't quite escape the influence of the big progressive spirit of the seventies, either that or they couldn't resist the creative insanity of the drugs they were taking (as my wife would say) with one track (Animal Crackers) featuring some really nifty chords and a funky-ass bassline covering some very unusual rifferific territory:





Reminding me a lot of the Edgar Winter's Animals track.

Ave Caesar, Rock-ituri te salutant !!

Orval, Chants et Guitares Acoustiques 1975

In the database here.  Note the 600 dollar price tag.

I know some people adore this kind of 'psych folk' but it leaves me completely indifferent.  I don't like the way they don't even try to play the guitar well compared to the virtuosity of fusion, and the chord progressions, inevitably, are quite ho-hum, patterns you'd find on just about any folk album from the 60s or 70s.  Even the ubiquitous, my most hated, A minor - G - F - E7 is represented once.  The production lacks imagination, with just guitars and singing.  As an example in which they do try to transcend the genre, the best is the Machine a redescendre le temps (i.e. to go back down time):





The last track (Postcard from the United States) has an unfortunate quotation from All Along the Watchtower, the great Nobel Prize-winning lyric by Laureate and immortal master of literature Bob Dylan.

The Three Natural Life albums, by request, plus Androids by Rockwell

Three wonderful long lost and still lost jazzier fusion albums from the late seventies USA created by a sextet that existed for a brief time only, the aforementioned 1983 Mike Elliott Diffusion album forms a fourth to be listened to as an epilogue to the trilogy.  Members included guitarist Elliott, keyboardist Bobby Peterson, sax player Bob Rockwell, and percussionist Steve Kimmel (notable too is the album called Androids which Rockwell made with most of the other members in 1974).  I always loved the varied ideas incorporated in the Elysian Fields:

From pnf days, ST:

Again thanks to the mighty osurec for introducing me to this band that to me is reminiscent of the Muffins in their more approachable, less grumpy moments.  It's headed by Mike Elliott who was quite prolific in the seventies, most of the composition is credited to him.  Read the notes on the back for info on the music.  There will be more to come, promise, or rather, threaten?


Unnamed Land:

On this record, which I think is quite superior to the previously posted ST, the basic quintet (recall this comprises Mike on guitar, Robert Rockwell III on saxes, Bill Berg on drums (and cover art), Bobby Peterson on piano, and W. Peterson Jr. on bass) is augmented by a half dozen more musicians playing vibes, flutes, congas, clarinet, and Rick Peterson on synths (on the last track).  Each song is composed by a different musician pretty much.  For me the standout is the collaborative track "Trio" which is arranged by Elliott, but composed by the two Peterson  gentlemen.   This record has a kind of smooth overall softness in composition and arrangement that to me is so attractive and typical of the late seventies style that, as I mentioned, is utterly concerned with crafting beautiful music with no cynicism, irony, technical artifice, or impediments.  Both "Unnamed Land" and the next, "All Music" are really masterpieces in this genre of american chamber fusion, like the famous Coalition Mindsweepers from osurec.  Btw I'm confused about the placement of the ST Natural Life, although the date on the sleeve is 1977, it seems originally it was the first record to appear, since it predates Mike Elliott's Atrio from 1974 and seems to be a little rougher than these next 2 records.  Presumably it was private pressed first, then rereleased on ASI?

I want to draw your attention to the track Trio, in the middle part of which there is an absolutely stunning fender rhodes-flute interaction, this part is called "Migration" and is credited to bassist Will Peterson.  I don't know how you can more perfectly 'describe' acoustically this image of birds in a wetland, taking flight, dipping, soaring, splashing, in a soft and beautiful landscape.  And it leads so wonderfully into the springtime with the soprano sax from Robert Rockwell.  (As I said before, the soprano sax and the clarinet are classic instruments for these seasons.)  Pay attention as you get suddenly an ascending riff (on the sax) exactly like a bird flying away towards the end.  Just stunning.




And what about the cover drawing from Berg? Well, seems to be a group of native americans or perhaps africans in shallow waters at a beach with the vision of ancestors in the sky-- esthetically great, but the concept?  And the faces in the sky--  yikes!

All Music:

We'll continue on with their discography with this record in which Bill Berg is no longer credited to percussion but is still doing the covers and artwork, which in this case are just stunning, with the mauve watercolours on the back particularly beautiful. The music is the same chamber-fusion with a light touch of flutes, soprano saxes for colour, etc. Let me introduce this with some fine a-propos words from our very own apps: 

" Very melodic US jazz/fusion with some smooth sax work,delicate electric piano and ethereal bass lines not unlike the softer side of RETURN TO FOREVER." 

Well said. Again, it boggles the mind that these records are so rare, not a cd reissue in sight, when the quality both of composition and of musicianship, are so utterly top-notch. And that, of course, is why I indulge in this bizarre and time-consuming hobby, it's a kind of community service to rip these old records for posterity, in the hopes posterity will respect the astounding work that went into them and give them a higher spot in the musical-quality scale of things than oh I don't know, the latest Britney Spears cd, perhaps. And for those like me who do believe we are heading towards a post-industrial world of blackouts and brownouts, it is quite imaginable that the manually-cranked record player may yet make a comeback, a hundred years from now, when electricity is sporadic, and people want to listen to this virtuosity from the past -- on the other hand, we are more likely to see manually-operated computers and cd players anyways if that comes to pass, so forget that fantasy. 

I'll throw in the Androids LP too, since I believe few people out there have ever heard the complete work, other than the sampled title track.  It's not quite as tight and interesting as the NL works, far more jazzy and has too many improvised sections for my taste.

Karlos P. Steinblast compleat

I was surprised to see the last official album he made, Steinblast and Friends' Jazz Funk, is not more known. It's not as good as the first two hard rock titles, but occasionally the same invention shines through, as on the track in 7/4:





He's interesting too for uniquely American reasons.  Starting off as a typical stoner rocker with a great deal of admiration for Led Zep presumably in the well-titled "Hard Rock Vol.1" and in his second explicitly stating his primary reason for desiring fame: "I Need a Woman," he later toned everything down in the Jazz Funk record.  As commenters have pointed out, he was already religious (for example at his concerts he lectured to the audience) but subsequently became an all-out born again Christian and transformed himself into a genuine preacher, which is his career to this very day.  He has continued to make music, but it's a little watered down by the religious influence.  It would be wonderful to know what he thinks today of his first, masterpiece album.

From prognotfrog days:

We have to admire these dedicated or perhaps stone-crazy American artists like Karlos P. Steinblast who continued making progressive music into the eighties when it was completely unfashionable and unsustainable.  He even proudly proclaimed it on the cover: "progressive rock" -- pretty uncompromising, or perhaps stoned lacking in sobriety, to fly his freak prog flag so high.   It was a style already uncool by the late seventies as far as I've read.  Yet this record is full of references to how he'll gain fame and groupies, though it hasn't happened yet: dear cadillac-driving Karlos, why not copy Duran Duran?  

When you look at this guy if you're old enough you're taken straight back to childhood and those crazy over-hairy days, those lazy over smokey-and-the-bandit days of stinky herbal park benches endlessly discussing Jimmy Page versus Jeff Beck, while 'Eric Clapton is god'.  His best record is actually the one that came before, the first, called "Hard Rock Vol. 1".  I will post also the third one, "Steinblast and Friends" which demonstrated a bit of deterioration in quality, not the best friends to have around maybe.  Notice that the "I need a woman"  Suite from the second transforms into "I don't need no leash" in the next record, a year later - how many of us men have felt the same way one or two years into marriage?  check out some of the lyrics for that one:

"Woman let me be, and shut your screaming face,
I don't need no leash
I don't need no collar
I don't need the way that you scream and holler"

To focus on the track "Where is Debbie Miller?" is to be taken back to those hazy redolent five-leaved days of 1981 when all was denim and possible, droppable, inhaleable, when big fat psilocybin-fueled dinosaur America still ruled the world of cars with its carboniferous chevys, massive mustangs, trashy trans-ams; it's the story of Debbie Miller, a teenaged girl who witnessed Karlos get run over by a Cadillac: "he's squashed, baby, between two cars!!!" -- when the PO-lice came, of course, she had to run away because she was 'jailbait'.   But here's the best part; halfway through the song, he suddenly starts asking "Where's my kazoo???  Where's my kazoo????"  --and then he plays the kazoo!

On the back of the record, this plaintive little note from Karlos: " Could the DJ's in the Illinois area please play 'where is Debbie Miller' to help me locate her? It's very important! Thank You!"

But yeah, that's what it was like back then in the late seventies early eighties.  People tell me.  The American dream-- Morning again in America.  America the beautiful, America the great, home of the bald eagle and the toupee'd presidents, Stars and Strippers forever.  Come back to the 5 and dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean, the Boulevard of Broken Dreams has led you to the Last House on Dead End Street, but now night has fallen and as Mao once said, for us to soon see, " it's never darkest till it's completely black " ...

Regarding the first album:

This is by far his best work (and indeed one of my favourite guitar-rock albums from the US) featuring some really raw, psychiatric and hard-assed guitarwork-- moreover, most songs are quite progressive and each in its own uniquely bizarre way.  The one thing about this album is the late year-- you'd think most of this material was written 5-8 years before, especially given the Led Zep-influence that seems to be omnipresent.  )

Let's just have a listen to the first magnificent masterpiece track, "Me and my babe--"  wherein Karlos  stays at home with his babe gettin' it on:

"we can't drive -- with the price of gas,
fuel oil -- running out fast --
we keep warm under cover --
please don't tell -- my mother"

--showing he was a peak oil believer 25 years ahead of his time-- but then the song goes: 

"Costs too much to go nowhere--
I don't wear no underwear"

--this is truly an insane genius deserving of immortality.   As I said, each track has its own interesting twist: the spacey funk that starts side b, the fast instrumental riff that follows (called Stabb, sampled below), recalling perhaps the Frankenstein song by the Edgar Winter Group, the lament for being stranded in New York City, the "I hate disco" song that sounds so beautifully quaint today, esp. with the utter dominance of 'dance music' in today's world... again note his wonderfully original guitar-playing style, often using chunky chords punctuated by fast riffs to interconnect phrases.

US Progmasters Everfriend Compleat

Probably everyone reading this is familiar with at least the first, if not the first 2 records from this prog group led by the well-named Bill Rhodes.  However their third one is completely rare for everyone out there, I am pretty sure.  Unfortunately it turns out to be a bit too much like the generic jazz-rock soundtrack to a loungey banal movie.  There are some bits that shine through the darkness of the theatre though, as when Bill Rhodes pulls out the musical charts for classical composition (via ELP perhaps) on the Execution:





There is absolutely no doubt that as Tom pointed out, he could've done a better job with the keyboard selection here:

Everfriend's 3rd album, even more obscure than the other two, sees band leader Bill Rhodes moving into more trendy areas of sound for the era. Primarily synth pop rock coupled with long track electronic music, played on cheap sounding synthesizers. All quite typical for 1983. Not a whole lot to recommend here, and a long way from the intriguing Tropicsphere. But still worth seeking out for a listen, as a period piece.

Tom's review of the first album was, surprisingly, spot on [just kidding there]:

Tropicsphere starts off precisely in the place that the title suggests: The Love Boat basically. Breezy lounge styled jazz rock with trumpet, lightly amplified electric guitar, Rhodes piano, and lush dreamy female vocals. And then suddenly... ...suddenly it goes all Hatfield and the North. The drummer, who was going bonkers even on the slow commercial numbers, decided enough was enough, and it was time to start jamming! Here come the synthesizer solos and Northette styled vocals, and now we have something worth talking about! Now that the band has been "outed" as it were, all pretense of anything but keyboard driven Big 3 progressive rock are brought forth. Flip the record over and we start off with a flute driven jazz rock number. This is followed by a classically oriented harpsichord medley. And so it goes getting more and more progressive... a very good album overall.

Everfriend were from New Jersey and, perhaps predictably given their music "sphere", later relocated to Florida.

Finishing up Carita Holmström with Aquamarin (1984), Time of Growing (1990)

We abandoned her discography after the year 1980 quite some time ago (could it really be 4.5 years!) with the disappointingly two-faced album Two Faces.  We shouldn't have, because there were more beautiful surprises to come.  I know throughout the blog I've mentioned her name many times as one of the most outstanding discoveries in the female SSW sphere, like a Finnish Carole King, with the welcome addition of some very progressive or inventive aspects here and there and that typical Scandinavian spirit of melancholy that blows like a January wind throughout, so the mistake is all mine.  Despite the Olivia Newton John-like cover of the 1984 Aquamarin straightaway the opener just blew me away, being, despite the slight deviance into 80s production, as good in composition as anything from the first magical album:





Jag ar hel = I am whole (?)

And the whole LP continues in the same vein, distinctly superior to its 1980 predecessor, surprisingly, despite this being the iconic year of George Orwell and Duran Duran.   As a whole it seems more mature, less childishly naive than the first album.

Moving forward into 1990 one cannot expect miracles from the music industry.  And indeed this album hits its nadir on the beginning of side b with 4 cover versions of Gershwin tracks, the most stupidly insipid ones like Fascinating Rhythm, a song so unfascinating to me I would gladly buy the sheet music just to use for toilet paper-- showing the odd bipolar tendency that was a hallmark of every Carita album since 1980, but then, surprise, the brilliant composer returns with a chamber suite called Tällainen Olen Maailmani in four parts, lasting less than 13 minutes, but heavenly for us to hear:





It's outrageous that in the year 1990 such music would have been produced with a hope to being heard!!  When I think back to that time I remember hair metal and Guns and Roses, the facile soul of Whitney Houston and idiocy of Celine...

Here's another part of the suite that sounds very much extracted from an opera she composed, building so much in its intensity with unusual chord structures I was utterly in shock:





The first side of this 1990 work is not at all disappointing either, despite what I had been led to believe by the release year.

So thank you, thank you Carita, for this.

Note that she continued with a couple more albums, and you can hear samples on discogs.  If I have some extra money in paypal I might try to buy those too, though I'm expecting bitter disappointment finally.

Holocausto - Aleluya (Puerto Rico, 1975)

I was really pleased to see that someone had ripped this one again, presumably it was bootlegged to CD and now a ninth or bonus track appears appended.  Previously a horrific rip was circulating, mono, and worse, but this new one seems to be a little monoish too suggesting the recording itself was poorly done.

In case you're not familiar with this band's one-off led by guitarist Jose Ramos (for what it's worth), this is classic progressive symphonic / electric guitar rock along the lines of so many other Hispanic masterpieces like Goma 14th April, Secta Sonica, Ibio, Atila Intention, perhaps most similar to the first with its combination of hard guitars and loud rock raucousness and lacking that annoying tendency to descend into Latin chord stereotypes (think E minor F G and back down again, the classic flamenco chords) which was a huge feature of for example Musica Urbana, Iceberg and Granada.

Note the classic prog brilliance of La Venida del Senor:





From Unencumbered Reviews:

Holocausto are an obscure Christian band from Puerto Rico who released this one very intriguing album. At times, there are bursts of complex and heavy Italian styled prog with guitars and keyboards raging over the crazy rhythms. At others, there's a bit of machismo Latin soul rock, that is obviously more song based. Overall, it reminds me somewhat of the Peruvian band Tarkus. It's a very rough recording, but the reckless abandon of youthful exuberance takes this one up a notch. Apparently the band had started to work on a remix for a possible reissue, but no recent word has surfaced that I could find anyway. I could see this easily going up a half point or more with repeated listens. Definitely recommended for a CD reissue.

This is another late era submission from The AC.  His notes to me were: "This Christian-themed underground Latin American rarity is an interesting blend of progressive, psychedelic, hard rock/proto metal and latin rock styles.  Heavy riffing, organ/keys, flute/sax and impassioned vocals battle it out over a set of relatively concise but atmospheric and thoughtfully constructed tracks, where the undeniably cool "aura" of the whole thing helps to make up for the somewhat primitive execution. Great cover art as well (both front and back). However, the sound here could really use a good cleaning up, as it's hard to even hear some of the more interesting instrumental details at times. It seems the band themselves were working on doing just that a few years back, but I'm not sure if this is still an ongoing effort. Lets hope so, because this one is definitely worth it."


Oh and good luck with your hurricane recovery down there guys when your billions of US dollars get spent for another brick in the wall.  I guess you'll just have to wait a few more years to get your electricity restored-- maybe by a new coal plant.  Or when "AOC" gets elected president.  As Pink Floyd taught us: "We don't need no education." And we've learned that lesson really well haven't we.

Aorta Byen (Denmark 1978) by request

A cute pop-funk album that I'm glad was requested just before Xmas and arrived for our listening enjoyment just following.  This is their only release, according to the database.  The Beatlesian harmony vocals (which reminds me not a little of Norwegian pop-prog band Difference) and admixture of funky rhythms into the otherwise somewhat generic pop give it some interest, made sustained as well by the above-average length of the whole LP.

Back to Yuji Ohno by request in The Night (1979) with Koji Ishizaka

  

Here's one of my Xmas presents to myself, a gorgeous, heavy cardboard eminently solid LP in near mint condition both externally and vinylly [ouch]-- altogether just beautiful to behold and rare enough that there isn't usually more than one copy for sale if at all at any one time both outside and inside of Japan. And of course someone in requesting it made me aware of it.

I've covered Yuji Ohno exhaustively, starting with Jimmy Dean and the Inugami soundtrack, followed by Silent Dialogue and then Chu Kosaku, which was also requested.  His music in the earliest days was enjoyably funky with some progressive thrown in for us hungry dogs but later atrophied to purely soundtrack / easy listening generic orchestral banality with totally by-the-numbers chord changes.  Accordingly, this album from 1979 is primarily the latter but does have some funkishness on display.

Regarding Koji Ishizaka, who, it's important to note, recites either poems or stories above the music on every track except the final one, wikipedia-Japan's page says:

Koji Ishizaka (Koji Ishizaka, 1941 (1941) June 20 -), the Japan of the actor - entertainer , emcee , painter , writer , translator , lyricist , narrator is. From October 2015 belong to Production Oguri . Real name, Mutsuyoshi Muto (Mutual Heiichi). My nickname is Militia.  Stage name derived from the best friend Mayumi Ozora is their favorite writer Yojiro Ishizaka and actor Koji Tsuruta due to be named by borrowing from each. According to Mr. Ishizaka himself still playing in real name TBS 's TV producer Ishii Fukuko was advised to rename, it is said that the stone' s name of the stone ("It is said to have taken a stone" of Ishii Fukuko) It was decided to " Ishizaka Koji " also because the father of the expanse was making a surname check .

And Google Translate shows us once again how the magic of artificial intelligence aka robots and their 'deep learning / neural nets' will soon replace us all with their eerily human-like abilities of translation which are clearly indistinguishable from a real human being.  I love how The Great Google 'translated' the year 1941 into (1941).  That kind of thing is just priceless.  Can't wait to hear those robot musicians create some artificial fusion too though I have a feeling it will be better than some of the 80s stuff I've posted here.  Two more things I'd like to point out: why is the computer program so confused by the alternating first person and third person "it" subject in this article, a mistake which no human would ever make--ever, and how did that AI program unwittingly compose a poem in the middle section:

His stage name due to be named by borrowing from each
According to mr. Ishizaka himself still playing in real name 
TV producer Ishii Fukuko was advised to rename
it is said at the stone's name of the stone 
"It is said to have taken a stone" --of Ishii Fukuko--
and it was decided to " Ishizaka Koji " also-- 
because the father of the expanse 
was making --the surname check...


Wow. "The father of the expanse was making the surname check."
Reboot that robot.

On the inside you will note multiple photos of the man, the stone's name of the stone, plus the spoken passages written out.  I doubt they are as beautiful as the wild google translate's wiki page.  But I might be wrong.  If you add up the scans I did you'll notice there's an odd number (that is if you're astute enough), and the reason is because behind the beautiful colour photo of the stone's name there is a beautiful blank white page I didn't bother to reproduce.

The most funky track is called Jealousy:





This is definitely the classic Ohno we love so much.  As I said, the last track, which is totally generic soundtrack, does have (female) vocals, it's called Lost and Alone:





More Xmas presents shortly.

American composer Richard Hazard: Some Call It Loving, etc.

Some of the most beautiful music I've ever heard appeared on the score of an unknown 1972 movie called "Some Call it Loving," aka "Sleeping Beauty" made by a director who subsequently became known for sensual soft-core called Zalman King (e.g. Red Shoe Diaries).  I was entranced by the movie when I saw it because of the bizarre poetry of the story, where a rich dude discovers a permanently sleeping woman at a carnival or circus (those ancient places where you could see freaks and animals performing tricks-- in real life, not youtube, who remembers?) he falls in love with her at first sight, she wakes up and he has to bring her home as his girlfriend.  Because of his obstinate and weird moodiness the relationship doesn't quite work out, this part of the movie could've been developed more given she was asleep presumably for years without human contact, so then he drugs her back to sleep and returns her to the circus for the next guy to possess.  Obviously in today's world many people would have a problem with that storyline including possibly me.  Also memorable was the cameo by Richard Pryor playing a drug addict, esp. given that time later in real-life when he set himself on fire in some kind of crack-induced hallucination.  And the actress who played the titled role of the sleeping beauty is Tisa Farrow, sister of course of Mia.  Rotten Tomatos gave it a perhaps appropriate rating of 1.9 out of 5 with 13 % of people saying they enjoyed the movie.  Ouch.  For this reason perhaps, it can't be found on youtube.

From imdb: A woman who's been asleep for years is part of a carnival that sells her kisses for a buck. A lonely jazz musician buys her. Once awake, the two of them and his two girlfriends hook up. But sometimes, dreams are better than reality.  

Amazingly, wikipedia has a more complete description of the plot, if you're interested.

The theme song:





The pathos and emotion in some of the melodies is stunning:





Note that only half the soundtrack seems to be available, disappointingly, and so far I haven't been able to locate the rest.  Sorry about that chief.  Hopefully someday.

And now, from discogs:

Richard Hazard (March 2, 1921 – December 20, 2000) was an American television composer, orchestrator, conductor and writer. He was born in Trenton, New Jersey, and died in Los Angeles, California, of cancer. He was married to Jeanne Taylor from 1950 until his death, and had two children.

I threw in a couple more albums from him that I found, the OST of Heroes with Henry Winkler the Fonz and another spoken word album with his orchestral backing.