Most of the album was written by drummer Ryojiro Furusawa and it's a bit of a decline from the previous, unfortunately, trending towards the standard jazz acoustic outfit although augmented with electric guitars, elec. piano, and violin here and there.
Title track, the only one written by Tamami:
Good news for the guy who requested this artist, who is sadly totally unknown everywhere online so far as I can tell (which is not very far at all of course): because for the next ten days, we'll cover all her early albums starting with this first one.
All instrumental, composed music featuring mostly flute on melodic solos but also vibes, etc., and of the highest caliber, in terms of emotional variety. Arrangements are extremely well done with sometimes the whole orchestra (including string section), sometimes just electric piano and guitars, note that these were done here by Isao Suzuki, who also plays bass and who I just featured.
The music is very similar to Japanese violinist Linnko Kishi, recall posted way back here.
The second track called Drowsy Time gives you an idea of the extreme beauty of not just the composition with its very original and unique chord changes and delicate flute playing but the arrangements as well:
It's interesting how similar the eye cover is to the NZ preceding drawing although I don't imagine for a second there was any plagiarism involved given the artist name.
These guys are like CCR crossed with that lovely country rock sound of Spruce and their incredible song about Winter I so raved about back here. Again the harmony vocals on these 2 LPs are outstanding and provide that classic rock sound we love so much.
From discogs:
Los Angeles country-rock band who charted the single "Games" in 1971. Vocalist Douglas Mark was previously with The Sunshine Company.
I must say it's always a shock to see the Greek story of Daedalus (whose wax winged son Icarus fell into the ocean not heeding his father's warning not to fly too close to the sun) being referenced on a rock album as on this one, in fact I don't think I've ever seen that before. Then again the fact his name was misspelled as Dadaelus is a little bit detracting, as you can see on the vinyl label. Nonetheless the lyrics are clearly referencing the myth, which happens to be my favourite Greek one:
Yet another undeservedly forgotten band from the golden age.
From discogs:
Founded in Wellington, New Zealand in 1968 by lead guitarist and vocalist Malcolm Hayman, Quincy Conserve were one of the more popular local bands of their era. Their sound progressed more in the direction of jazz-rock, and they had success with audiences at jazz festivals. They split up in 1976.
Their music is similar to my Madura post, if you recall that one, with the old 60s simplistic jazz-rock style augmented by slight proto-prog but incorporating a little too much blues to be called fusion yet, a little too simple to be considered inventive like the early Chicago albums (1 to 3 when they were still progressively minded).
Predictably the last album is the best one showing a more mature and perfected style with no fear of being original and more inventive. Consider the oddball track which talks about an earthquake:
Note how the opening riff, usually a repetitive electric guitar instrumental, is accompanied by vocals, an oddity for sure in rock history. A few more interesting numbers can be found and enjoyed in that last album from 1975.
From the first I was pleasantly surprised by the song called "Everybody has their way" written by the drummer Bruno Lawrence who went on to become an actor apparently. This song has such a great hook it should've been a hit (was it?) back in the day:
Back to the Aussie stuff for a couple of weeks.
Information here. Of course Renee Geyer was featured exhaustively (I think) here and at that time I mentioned the great track which actually has its own wiki page, Heading in the Right Direction which oddly enough doesn't appear on this comp from which it received its title. Jazz Co-Op more recently here.
Joyce Hurley's Sunbath:
One more from him, as everyone knows by now I just love the addition of strings to either rock or jazz to add that comprehensive musical sound, so I was quite interested in this record. Note that according to the discography, the String Band only appears for this one. Unfortunately again we have the appearance of standards with the passable Nica's Dream by Horace Silver, a Jobim composition called Lamento and the absolutely horrific and plague-infected old rotten apple Greensleeves. What makes it even more torturous is that its arrangement (by our most beloved Masahiko Satoh!) is absolutely brilliant. (Kind of like a perfect breast implant job on a very old woman.) Note that shockingly Ron Carter appears on secondary bass here and Hank Jones on piano. There is a credit for piccolo bass for Suzuki, an instrument which I hadn't even heard about.
Here's Avenue by Suzuki which really highlights his skills as a composer:
Well worth hearing this album for and making it well worth the price of admission, as I always say.
First of all, we have to point out the cover painting of Cadillac Woman-- which is really something.
I mean-- what can you even say to that one? I have to wonder if the painting originally had the electrical wire coming out from further down and it had to be adjusted?
Here's some more from Isao Suzuki, again it's really hit and miss with some albums overloaded with standards but once in a while a well composed or fusiony track appears like the summer sun through a dark expanse of threatening and ugly storm clouds of generic nauseating jazz standards. His bio borrowed from discogs:
From the Cadillac Woman LP (1977) I love the intricacies of the post-bop riff on a track called Bamboo:
The title track of Push (which is a collaboration composition from the 2 of them) from the 1978 album with singer Niroko Miyamoto is remarkably progressive for a pure funk track:
As an ex. the title track from his best album, the Mongolian Chant:
Amazing how many sounds, moods, and themes they run through in that one track.
It's unfortunate he didn't make more than these 3 with his band the New Family, not sure of the solo material which is extensive as you can see here. His Impressions of Chas. Mingus is unfortunately a little underwhelming esp. in comparison to that by Teo Macero. The last album is full of jazz standards like a toilet that got clogged, sadly.
But Mongolian Chant is an almost masterpiece for sure.
And how odd that The Thing in the album cover above is a horse.
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In the Ceccarelli post, he contributed quite a bit to the later library albums they made together.
In this release he performs with a quartet, nominally, with guest guitarist Jean-Claude Chavanat. He contributed two songs and the rest are composed by Mark Steckar and his son Franck. Mark is a tuba, trombone and euphonium player who wrote the title piece which after a kind of laidback generic contemporary jazz start really gets into a nice complex appreciable groove:
Overall this was well worth the purchase due to the originality of the compositions which, like the example above, often start off in some kind of generic style but develop more intelligent and creative directions. In this respect it's similar to the Project One rip from a month ago, which I still find to be far more enjoyable than we had a right to expect.
