Cheri Adams, Sweet and Sour Songs (1977), by request

Long, long ago, in a pandemic so far away, someone requested this LP and I was waiting for some extra paypal funds from other LPs sold to purchase this, having heard the Jungle Bird track on youtube and having been suitably impressed by it.

This is her only LP, from 1977, databased here.  It's a mix of acoustic-based singer songwriter, bluesy numbers, poppy stuff, etc.  It's extremely well played, showcasing highly professional musicianship which is always a delight of course.  It leans more into the late seventies Joni Mitchell jazzier ssw material, less acoustically folky than the wonderful Florida discovery Paula Moore's 2 we loved so much back here.

Here's that beautiful composition, the Jungle Bird which so deserved to be a radio hit, but I guess wasn't, back in that day:

Will we ever learn? Well, the recent COP27 and Montreal biodiversity summits pretty much confirmed it:  of course not...  

We won't stop destroying the earth (and its other nonhuman inhabitants) until it's, well you know, destroyed...

Lucyna Owsinska's 1977 album (plus some Piotr Figiel)

I guess her only album, as per the discography.  It's a mixed bag of course just as you'd expect, with some blues, soul, singer-songwriter, regular 70s pop, etc. There's a track written by the well known Piotr Figiel (B1) which is the reason I was led to her page.

I decided to add some of Figiel's albums in a package as well, for those who need some. He made some really nice music esp. on the 1979 Somewhere, with his Ensemble.  The album he did with Urszula Sipinska was posted here long ago.

From Lucyna, the lovely track called Klucz:

A few other notable things to hear, more than once, on this totally unknown LP I ripped for the good of all humankind and posterity.

Netherlands' Contraband's 1995 Boy Edgar Suite

 

I guess these guys (from the Netherlands) are as unknown as it gets likely. From 1989 to 2004 they actually put out 6 albums, of which I only have one.

Sadly, because they made some great innovative and creative progressive fusion.

First part of the Suite demonstrates what we're dealing with here:

Librarian Oscar Lindok (Giacomo Dell'Orso) in 5 from the 70s

He is described thusly on discogs:

A pseudonym of Giacomo Dell'Orso for recording library music.

Giacomo Dell'Orso is the husband of Italian vocalist Edda Dell'Orso.

His three albums under the Oscar Lindok artist name are relatively generic library music, but the 1972 opus with Lindok Orchestra, catalogued here, is quite nice with its clear Morricone influence, as evidenced by the album opener, the (not-so-) Sad Trumpet:

After the Flood, from the album With Friends called Come Upstairs:

I think his Eruzioni (from 1974) is well known on account of its more abstract, atonal and experimental nature, however I didn't enjoy it as much, surprisingly, given that my taste does lean in that off-balance direction.

Back to Bobby Hutcherson with Spiral, from 1979

 

This album which came out in 1979 I thought was really lovely and well composed.  I've really enjoyed its delicacy and intellectual thoughtfulness which runs throughout, from beginning to end, in a wonderful kind of cohesive whole.

It's odd, in that the laid back gentle acoustic style it features sounds more like it would come from the late 50s.

The title track:

Mid-70s works from vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson (Cirrus, Linger Lane, The View from Inside, Montara, Waiting, Highway One, Knucklebean)

 

From discogs:

Robert Hutcherson

Profile:  American jazz vibraphone and marimba player.  Born January 27, 1941, Los Angeles, California, USA Died August 15, 2016, Montara, California, USA.  Nephew of Jazz trumpeter Ernie Figueroa.

His album Highway One, from 1978, absolutely knocked it out of the ballpark for me, though others might enjoy the earlier works.  This was the culmination of a nice string of instrumental fusiony works.

Later (by 1979 actually) he reverted back to the traditional acoustic jazz one might have heard one or two decades previously as on Herbie Mann albums, like on Spiral (1979) and Conception: The Gift of Love (1979) foreshadowing the tragic later 80s abandonment of fusion and electric jazz.  To his credit at least he didn't dabble in the commercialese funk / disco style of the day.  

As a whole his discography is pretty remarkable, beginning in 1965 with Dialogue (aged 24) all the way through the eighties with the 1-2 albums per year until he finally falters, 30 years later, in the mid-90s in his mid-fifties, passing away at the age of 75 in 2016, RIP.

Consider Bouquet:

From the earlier Linger Lane, the gorgeously rich sounds of Manzanita:

Bassist / composer Richard Davis in the 70s, by request [limited time only]

 

Discography here. 

I loved Way Out West which came at the end of a decade in which he put out about 8 albums.  The earlier material is full of standards but also oddified or made odd by his unusual tendency to play the bass with a bow, creating a tremulous vibrating sound to both melodies and improvs, that is a little bit offputting. Of course when the cello is played this way it can sound quite plaintively emotional and expressive due to its range in the human register of vocal pitch but I think the thickness of the strings on the bass and the depth of bassness make it a bit less compelling on that instrument...

On the other hand in this 1980 outing he eschewed that cursed bow (for the most part) and created some nice funky fusion material incl. this composition with the odd title of The Elephant Boy (Joseph Merrick's son?):

Return of Jazz Funk Series (Black Jazz, Groove Merchant, and Perception)

 

Not the best or most original covers, of course. Def a mixed bag with lots of interesting funky fusion, but a lot of ordinary material, the majority of course ordinary, as you might expect.

Limited time upload only.

Info on this series is here.  Some of the albums these samples came from, relatively unknown at least in my experience others will of course recognize them, are well worth hearing, which I'll post later.

David Crosby RIP

 

I thought I just finished the obituaries with Jeff Beck and Renee Geyer a couple of days ago.  What a bad week!

In this post from almost 3 years ago I talked about my abiding love for his music which started in my teen years when I was introduced to old sixties music, CSNY's Wooden Ships, and CSN's Anything At All, his ironic postmodern take on a know it all:

Is there anything, you want to know?   On any subject at all?

I've got time for one more question here, before I fall--

Is there anything at all?

Well there's music, right?

I've listened to Lee Shore a million times, and I love it deeply for the way it evokes the life of the ocean:

All along the Lee Shore, Shells lie scattered in the sand

Winking up like shining eyes at me, From the sea

Here is one like sunrise, Older than you know

It's still lying there, where some careless wave, Forgot it long ago...

Guardian:

In a statement to Variety, his widow Jan Dance said: “It is with great sadness after a long illness, that our beloved David (Croz) Crosby has passed away. He was lovingly surrounded by his wife and soulmate Jan and son Django. 

Although he is no longer here with us, his humanity and kind soul will continue to guide and inspire us. His legacy will continue to live on through his legendary music. Peace, love, and harmony to all who knew David and those he touched."

RIP to a true musical genius-- back to the eternal ocean which you loved so much...  

I love you, Croz

The Jeff Lorber Fusion from 1977 to 1981

I really love that last album cover album-- just a gorgeous painting. It recalls of course Soft Machine's Cockayne, and it's surprising that in 1984 we should see something pictorially so magnificent. Really bucking the trend of neon green, spandex and short hair.

The band made quite a few albums in this period, plus he did a couple on his own too. Things start auspiciously enough in the first album which came quite early (in 1977), consider the almost atonally dancing dissonance of the Refunk track:

I love it went artists are able to craft something whereby you hear familiar patterns, chords changes, etc. over that funky rhythm section, but everything sounds just so slightly off, as if it was put up by one semitone or down a semitone-- it takes real genius to do that and still have it come off sounding great like in this instance.

But I guess things go downhill fast into the smooth fusion lacking in original ideas, very quickly, and surprisingly soon, before even the turn of the decade.  When it came to simplistic fuzak, I guess he was ahead of his time.  Note that Kenny G was in this band before he branched out on his own.

Title track of Galaxian:

Renee Geyer, RIP

Not long after Jeff Beck, another noteworthy brilliant artist who was once featured here some 4 years ago.  By now I've listened to those classic albums of hers hundreds of times, especially the 1974 Ready to Deal, such an absolute masterpiece of energetic vocal progressive funk and fun tracks, like the inimitable Heading in the Right Direction (the song with its own wiki page), but also Spilt Milk and the title track.  Her discography here, and with her band 2 more here.

Wikipedia:

In January 2023, Geyer was admitted to hospital in Geelong where she had hip surgery. It was subsequently discovered that she had inoperable lung cancer. She died from surgical complications on 17 January 2023 at the age of 69.

Prague Big Band with Milan Svoboda, in 3: Portrait, Reminiscence, Poste Restante (1978-1982) as requested

Surprisingly I never posted these albums before on this blog though they're a natural fit, despite the fact that many times Milan Svoboda has appeared here under different groups (eg Interjazz) or as himself, most notably in the long ago April Orchestra oeuvre that was so beyond brilliant.  

The band's basic Discography here.

The music is quite big bandy which may deter some, may attract others, kind of like those random instagram pix of girls next door that seem to be a new and impossibly ridiculous career path for so many young women today-- god help us all, but especially the fathers with young daughters.

From the first, the track called Ondrej has appeared on multiple other records for sure, admittedly it deserves the recyclage, because it's got quite the fantastic dramatic buildup:

Similarly the track Stewed Plums from the 1980 album sounds so very familiar, too bad I'm too old to remember where it came from originally:

The last album, from 1982, is not quite as bad as one might expect based on its birth year, still retaining some of that lovely funky fusion sound.

Poste Restante = Poste restante, also known as general delivery in North American English, is a service where the post office holds the mail until the recipient calls for it.  

Of course, every time I try to purchase a package without tracking to save money, or send one likewise, I find the new rule or principle everyone follows is POSTE ABSENTE...

The beautiful and restante Tisina:

Ambiance II Fusion Ensemble's First 4

 

From discogs:

American jazz, funk, and boogie group that was active in Los Angeles, California in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Also known simply as 'Ambiance' the group reflected the spiritual outlook of its founder and leader Daoud Abubakar Balewa, a Nigerian-born saxophonist, flutist, and clarinettist who also played African and Latin percussion and was heavily influenced by world music.

They made 6 LPs back in the day, and even put out a compilation.  Four of these are avail. online with the last being the missing outlier, I would buy it except the tracks look like repeats or rehashes of past material.

The awesome fusion of Baggage  which appears on the sorry to say ridiculously titled album Gida Gida 'Tight and Tidy', sounds almost like National Health-level composition:

I love their version of the Last Tango theme too, written if you recall by Gato Barbieri, which appears on a couple of these.

Thanks for the recommendation / request!