Asturias - Circle in the Forest, Japan 1988, and Brilliant Streams 1990, lossless limited time

 

Discogged:

Japanese neo-progressive rock band Asturias started out in 1987 as the solo project of multi-instrumentalist and composer Yoh Ohyama. Disbanded in 1993. Reformed as Acoustic Asturias in 2003 and as Electric Asturias in 2009.

Mostly electronic and a little drony, which is not necessarily to my taste, but with some nice original prog touches here and there. A track called Clairvoyance from the Forest album, their debut:

1990's Brilliant Streams album starts out quite brightly like this with their Highland:

Joe Beck's Watch the Time from 1977

 

Not quite at the same level as British Jeff Beck of Beckola fame, but still good, I thought the album Watch the Time from 1977 was the most impressive one from the point of view of scalding hot fusionary visionary outpourings.  The composition called Polaris is top of my playlist for now, for at least a week, maybe a month:

Brief bio on discogs:

American jazz guitarist, born July 29, 1945 - Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, died July 22, 2008 - Woodbury, Connecticut.

I know the album from 1970 Sabicas with Joe Beck is popular, but I don't appreciate at all the Latin influences myself. After that, the Song from Wounded Knee is more experimental than enjoyable, and the ST album with the lovely cover picture is more ordinary than I would have expected given it came out at the height of the complex progressive fusion craze. Then we get to Watch the Time, which is actually a mix of more commercial stuff and great fusion. And the Tributaries album where he plays with Scofield and Larry Coryell I didn't like much when I reviewed for the Coryell oeuvre (brilliant as it is).

Leb i Sol's first 8, limited time only, plus Cecil McBee requested

From discogs:

Leb i sol (eng. "Bread and Salt") was a premier fusion band in former Yugoslavia. They were formed on 1st January 1976 in Skopje, Republic of Macedonia (back then part of Yugoslavia), with the original line-up consisting of: Vlatko Stefanovski (guitar and vocals), Bodan Arsovski (bass), Nikola Dimuševski (keyboards) and Dimitar Čočorovski (drums). In mid-1977 Garabet Tavitijan replaced Čočorovski on drums and this line-up would last until 1980, making the first three albums of largely instrumental Macedonian ethno-jazz-fusion that remain their best work so far. Dimuševski left in 1980, to be replaced for a short time by Miki Petkovski (ex-SMAK) but he also quit shortly. The remaining members decided to continue as a trio (without keyboards), so the fourth album introduced a change of music direction from pure jazz-fusion into more rock-based territory, retaining some ethno-fusion elements but making them more accessible to mainstream pop/rock audience. Tavitijan left in summer 1982 and his replacement was Dragoljub Đuričić, ex-YU Grupa drummer. The same year they changed their record label from Belgrade-based PGP RTB to Zagreb-based Jugoton. The 8th album "Tangenta" was produced by the Canterbury scene veteran Kevin Ayers. Tavitijan was back on drums in 1986, while the following year they added saxophone and keyboards for "Kao kakao" album, making another radical shift towards AOR laid-back sound with all vocal tracks, including several pop-hits, abandoning prog explorations almost entirely. Dimuševski was back in team for the last studio album "Putujemo" in 1989, while Đuričić again replaced Tavitijan on drums for the North American tour and "Live in New York" album in 1991.  They played their last concert in Thessalonica, Greece, December 1995, after which LEB I SOL disbanded. Stefanovski and Arsovski founded their private label Third Ear Music in 1990 and continued with successful solo careers.

In mid-2006 Leb I Sol gather back together in their most recognizable line up (Stefanovski, Arsovski, Dimuševski, Tavitijan) for their "30th ANNIVERSARY TOUR 2006", having gigs all around former Yugoslavia in the next several months.  After this tour ended, Vlatko Stefanovski leaves the band and the rest of the members continue to work with new guitarist Dimitar Božikov, a well established and appreciated Macedonian musician.

Well certainly the first 2 are masterpiece level, particularly the first one, I think.  In fact already by the second the stunning level of composition full of originality, starts to flag a little, and by the third there's already a bit of disappointment which starts to take over the show and predominate by the time of the fourth, called Infinity (1981, with the lying 8 figure). The next one is the obligatory double-LP live (1982) which usually came at the 4th to 6th release, for ex. Led Zep (#6), Frampton (#4), Deep Purple (the 4th if you set aside the first 4 primitive juvenilia works), etc. And that one too I found quite disappointing, but just wait to continue if you want more disappointment. By the time of 1982's Sledovanje you are frantically searching desperately for the slightest original chord change, creative idea, and invariably are disappointed, and the situation is even worse, like a single 55 year old woman desperate for a reasonable marriage prospect who isn't either divorced or a jerk or both. 

Nonetheless to my surprise there are gems here and there, sparsely, far apart, such as, from Kalabalak (1983), LA Kridja:

and from Tangenta (1984), which as mentioned above was surprisingly produced by Kevin Ayers, Laku Noc:

But these are a little pale in comparison to the first couple of albums...

Carlos Franzetti Part 3, some later albums: Misunderstood OST (1984), with Stockholm Jazz Orchestra - Tango (1999), The Jazz Kamerata (2005), Duets with Eddie Gomez (2008)

 

The soundtrack music is exactly what you'd expect, orchestral theme stuff with no complexity, at least it's not the bombastic overdramatic drivel + plus jumpy simple classical silliness that we hear nowadays in current films (although there is some of that too), and the composition does show emotional range and depth, eg Father and Son:

From the Tango album, whose title alone is quite the deterrent for me, I'll sample Los Mareados for a taste of its conventional accordion sound plus standard chord progressions, of course a sickly combination for myself, perhaps not others:

Regarding the album Duets, which needless to say was disappointing for me as well (being simple jazz of the kind made in the 1950s), read the discogs note rendering it even more unappealing I believe:

2009 BMI Latin Grammy Award Winners Best Instrumental Album: “Duets” by Carlos Franzetti & Eddie Gómez.

A track called Tender Lovers:

(I think, winning a Grammy, is something that should automatically prohibit artists from appearing on this blog.)

The album from 2005 is called Jazz Kamerata. For those like me curious to know Kamerata means, according to the hallucinatory untrustworthy AI of google:

Italian word

Camerata is an Italian word that means "room" or "chamber". It can also refer to: 

A dormitory 

A comrade, especially in a right-wing group 

Musical term

A camerata is a small chamber orchestra or choir, typically with up to 60 musicians. The term is connected to the Renaissance usage of the word as a club of artists and scholars who met to discuss culture. 

Adjective

Camerate is an adjective that means "divided into chambers". For example, you might describe a shell or eye as camerate. 

Crinoid order

Camerata is also the name of the largest order of crinoids, which includes all Paleozoic species that have the lower brachial plates included in the cup.

It would be lovely if it was referring to the biological crinoid order (invertebrate sea lilies) but of course it's more likely referring to the musical term despite the change of c to k, this being music of course.

I post the track called Allison's Dance because it's the sole original composition from Franzetti on this album the remainder are from others (Miles Davis, B. Evans, Clare Fischer, W. Shorter, S. Kuhn, Metheny, Jarrett) incl. a track by the brilliant E. Toussaint (cf. Sacbe), and the lovely Elegia by my beloved Claus Ogerman. I believe that one was first written for Bill Evans and appeared on one of their amazing collaborations which I've listened to all my life starting in university, and still can't get sick of.

The delicacy of Franzetti's arrangement is shockingly beautiful on this record too, comparing quite positively to Claus,  and on top of that he plays the piano very much in Bill's (RIP) extremely tender and sparkly style. Anyways, this is the Franzetti composition from that gorgeous release (which should've won a Grammy instead!):

So a great album mostly on the basis of its arrangements, and the original track from Carlos.

Some requests next!

Fusion - Top Soul 1975, lossless limited time only

 

The track Dedos appeared on this one-off album, with information to be found here. Franzetti was not in this band.

Very influential chilean rock, fusion, jazz-fusion, folklore, jazz-funk and pop band. Formed in 1972 in Santiago, they splited up in 1975.

Members were:

- Matías Pizarro: piano (1972 – 1975).

- Enrique Luna: bass + contrabass (1972 – 1975).

- Sandro Salvati: alto saxophone (1972 – 1974).

- Lautaro Rosas: guitar (1973 – 1975).

- Pedro Greene: drums (1973 – 1974).

- David Estánovich: tenor saxophone (1975).

- Mario Lecaros: piano + electric piano (1975).

- Orlando Avendaño: drums (1974 – 1975).

- Claudio Bertoni: percussion

Others part-time members were: Víctor Rivera (organ player), Guillermo Rifo (vibraphonist), Leslie Murray (electric guitar), Ricardo Salas (flute), Santiago "Santa" Salas (percussions) and Andrés "Titi" Gana (percussions).

A pleasant all instrumental funk / fusion / poppy album (cover of You Are the Sunshine of my Life)  of which of course the decade produced an enormous surplus, along the lines of the famed Belgian Placebo.

The lovely Lamentacion, as if lamenting the gradual loss of the wonderful fusion of the decade:

Back to Carlos Franzetti in a 7" from 1974

 

This is a single recorded in 1974 with involvement from the brilliant Argentinian composer Carlos Franzetti, featured back here with his late 70s masterpieces of composition.  For me the way he combined his classical music education with fusion was just inimitable. In his discography you can see he went on to become a sought-after soundtrack composer successfully until the present day.  

Following the masterpiece Galaxy Dust (1981) however, it seems he made generic OST stuff, covers of old jazz standards, modern classical music, and eschewed the fierce 'third stream' style of music. The thing is it's hard to say since I have little familiarity with those later records and most of them seem to be out of print / unreleased digitally or to CD.

Producer / Releaser info regarding the 7":

The story behind: In 1974, after CARLOS FRANZETTI was living in Mexico and worked as the musical director of FERMATA International, he returned to Argentina. In Buenos Aires his friend MOCHIN MARAFIOTTI was recently appointed A&R at the local recording label MUSIC HALL . Marafiotti asked Carlos if he wanted to record some of his music and he answered that he had in mind a group playing LATIN JAZZ . After a couple of meetings they came out with the idea of covering the RUBEN RADA tune DEDOS recently recorded in the US by AIRTO MOREIRA along with the OPA TRIO.

Carlos contributed his own composition „Doce y Diez“ . He selected the group consisting of his friend and member of the uruguayan Band TOTEM, Ruben Rada on percussion, Ricardo Lew on guitar , Emilio Valle on bass and Osvaldo Lopez on drums covering keyboards and vocals himself . This formation recorded tracks and vocals in a three hour session and the next day the track was mixed. Music Hall released „Dedos“ and „Doce y Diez“ on a single record and after months of discrete airplay and not so good sales the project for an album was draped . A few months after that Carlos moved back to the US where he is been living since December of 1974 to the present...

Here's the Franzetti composition, Doce:

I'll find more Franzetti and be back shortly.

More Requests: Shakatak - Drivin' Hard (UK 1982), Jan Fryderyk Creative Sound - Faun (Germ 1976), George Otsuka Quintet (Japan 1971 to 1976), Vita Nova (Germ 1971), Odean Pope - Almost Like Me (USA 1982)

 

Information here:

Shakatak is an English jazz-funk band founded in 1980, Drivin' Hard is their first from 1981. It's all instrumental, surprisingly, as you'd expect some vocals on an album like this one from the early part of this commercialocene decade. However, utterly unexpectedly, a tender track called Lumiere sounds like our beloved library genius Alan Hawkshaw with its dreamy, spacey synth line, plus the ocean wave sound that rolls in like a tide halfway through:

For those curious, like myself, the composer is Bill Sharpe, discogged here.

Jan Fryderyk Creative Sound is free jazz with piano and plaintive sax (Alan Skidmore), note the presence of Trilok Gurtu and Peter Giger, seen so often here in the past.

George Otsuka Quintet made 3 albums back in the first part of the 70s. It's basic contemporary quintet jazz (ie trumpet and sax plus the usual) with little fusion for the fusion fan.

Vita Nova is an unreleased band from the early 70s, as per discogs:

An obscure international Munich band, Vita Nova were fronted by guitarist and multi-instrumental Polish born talent Eddy Marron and Hungarian keyboard player Sylvester Levay. They played a complex fusion of classical rock and fusion styles, and aptly in keeping with their name all the lyrics were in Latin. In 1971, This record was only released in a limited private edition of 500 copies.

This album is very typical of the protoprog style of kraut rock with heavy hammond, loud sound, simple chords, bombastic vocals, etc. An unusual feature of this band apart from the Latin lyrics is that it's quite heavy on the percussion, with a couple of drum solos featured. At times they were capable of composing dissonances, as in the Inventions track:

It's important to note that Eddy Marron, of notable Dzyan fame, or rather, 'fame', was in this band. I mentioned him in relation to Family of Percussion here.

Odean Pope (American saxophonist) is for the most part overimprovised free jazz with a couple of songs that cater to more funky commercial tastes, this is the first album from him. So you could say it's a little uneven.

MIA's Nono Belvis + Kike Sanzol in Que Estan Celebrando los Hombres

 

I suppose everyone is familiar with the Argentinian group MIA, catalogued in that link. The acronym is for Músicos Independientes Asociados. Evidently their seminal album Transparencias was just a perfect hallmart of progressive folk mixed with chamber composition, skillfully written and played. And the 1978 one Cornonstipicum was also incredible.  These 2, guitarist / bassist Nono Belvis and drummer / vibraphonist Kike Sanzol however were not in the original lineup and didn't show up until En Vivo from 1977.  I didn't realize they made this MIA-like album, in 1982, until recently.

The music thus is percussion-heavy acoustic folky stuff, but quite admirably composed. The dual acoustic guitarwork on the track called Blanca Presencia is absolutely heavenly in my opinion:

For some atmospheric stuff but with Nono's electric guitar pulled out of its case, Una Specie de Hueco:

Jim Pepper's Pow Wow (USA 1971), Hopper and Soft Head, Sonny Fortune - Waves of Dreams (USA 1976), and Cravo Canela Preço - De Cada Um (Bra 1977), requested

 

Sonny Fortune:

Born May 19, 1939 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Died October 25, 2018 in New York City, New York.

American jazz woodwind player. Fortune played soprano, alto, tenor, & baritone saxophones, clarinet, and flute.

Title track of 1976's Waves of Dreams:

Jim Pepper's album from 1971 is an oddity definitely, with Indian drumming under some pretty basic songwriting:

American tenor saxophonist, composer, and singer of Native American ancestry. He was born in Salem, Oregon, June 18, 1941 and died Portland, Oregon, February 10, 1992.

As for Hugh Hopper and Soft Head, I think most people are familiar with these offshoots of the inimitable classic Canterbury fusion band Soft Machine.

Cravo Canela is basic pop/samba.

French Bassist Bunny (Bernard) Brunel in 3 (Touch 1979, Ivanhoe 1983, Momentum 1989) by request

 

Information databased here on discogs. 

In 1979 he created what is for me one of the standout masterpiece of progressive fusion from France, an album called Touch.   Note that earlier in the seventies he teamed up with Didier Lockwood and his bro Francis (plus Patrick Gauthier on keys) for the one-off album Jazz-Rock (1976) which is stunning too. And in the next year, played with Didier again in the wonderful Surya. Prior to these he also played in Tony Williams' Lifetime, another brilliant outfit. Anyways back to Touch. 

I rank this as one of the best albums in the style from that country, along with the Lockwoods (posted before), the amazing Cokelaere work, Transit Express, Potemkin, we can't forget Xalph, and then the masterpiece from Jean-Louis Bucchi, Sunflower (1978), but it sounds most like the 80s albums, so gently emotional and brilliantly original, from Joel Dugrenot: Boomerang, See, Mosaiques. There are many others I forget to mention.

Consider Little Green Girl:

Or Nova:

The emotional context is what I find so entrancing.

Unfortunately (for me), the follow up Ivanhoe reverts back to contemporary jazz styles and eschews the lovely fusion, a representative track would be Dede:

(This is not the same situation as for Pyramids and Birds of the Night from Eef Albers, wherein stunningly beautiful compositions appear post-1980 as evidenced by the post here. But I guess that was for sure a rarity.)

From 1989, Brunel's Momentum moves even further into the direction of tinny-keyboards / smooth slapped 80s bass fusion, typical of the times. I find the sound of the keys especially annoying, compared to the 60s majesty of hammonds and spacey dreaminess of the Fender Rhodes. However a small touch of the earlier emotionally adept well-crafted fusion style remains, in Again:

I have Touch in lossless, the other 2 in mp3... more requests up shortly

Canadians Le Pouls from 1976, fresh rip from vinyl, lossless limited time only

 

Well, I gotta say I'm a little disturbed by that cover, but I'll leave it at that. Information here for this one-off band, with the French word for 'Pulse'. I read however that the founder of the band, Denis Lepage (who married singer Denyse, as it happens) is described thus:

From Montréal, Québec, Canada.Married Denyse Lepage and together formed the pioneering electro-disco duo Lime (2), reaching club success in the early 1980's. Denis LePage later came out to be transgender, singing under alias Nini No Bless. Passed away august 21-2023 (Montréal, Canada)

The music is divided between the fusion we love (all written by Denis Lepage), and simple or silly  funky pop, with perhaps a preponderance of the latter, sadly. At least they were a bit fair about this sibling rivalry. Anyways the fusion pieces are so wonderful it was well worth resuscitating this enterprise.

Among those outstanding compositions, we have the ethereal and otherworldly flight patterns evoked by the synths on the Ocean Cosmique:

And another stunning fusion creation called Hymne au Soleil:

Too bad it's not a whole album filled with joys like this, right?

Back to Abe Battat's Once Around the Block from 1965, vinyl ripped, lossless limited time only

 

Recall his track called was in Praise Poems Volume 3, posted here. I hope I wasn't the only one who was shocked by how good the composition was and is.  Unfortunately it's not the same as the track that appears on this LP, instead, that song showed up as a single later in 1970. Anyone have it and can share the full single, ie both sides?

This is definitely the oldest vinyl I've ever posted, I think. Info here, note the recording is mono (there exists a stereo version). That beautiful cover graphic is credited to Karin Battat, presumably his wife.

It's all piano and rhythm section with only one cover version, And I Love Her (yes the Beatles song). 

Once you were mine:

McGill + Manring + Stevens in 3 albums (Addition by Subtraction 2001, Controlled by Radio 2002, and What we Do 2006) by request

A lot of beautiful crazy energetic music in these, but not so much in the way of CD cover art-- I won't say more about that.

Information on this trio here. Looks like all 3 share composition credits-- making me think it's perhaps mostly jamming improvisations--with some suggestions-- and in terms of instrumentation, Scott McGill is the guitarist, Michael Manring is bassist, which would make Vic Stevens therefore percussionist. 

I think their first release is the most obviously thought-through and therefore impressive, or at least,  listenable.  The second one is not only unbelievably long, splayed out over 2 full CDs but also mostly free jazz as far as I can tell, unless the compositions are so complex as to be atonal.  One drawback is that it gets a bit tiresome with the repeated noodling and meandering guitarlines, like a chaos theory form of the German classic trio Dzyan, and the monochromatic quality, lacking in keyboards or any other instruments or even other guitar sounds makes it a bit of an endurance run.

The third oddly enough features covers, admittedly quite unusually original, of jazz standards like Naima, Oleo and even the tired old 'Blue in Green' who really deserves a quiet retirement like Jay Leno.

Title track from the first album:

Four Fields, which almost but not quite closes out the record, features some more delicate arpeggiation for a change, and note the ethereal sound of the bowed guitar (played with a violin bow):

 

It would be wonderful if the gorgeous playing on these 3 releases could be exhibited in some pared-down and more concentrated, focused pieces, and with more variety in sound and instrumentation. Then these albums would be totally outta the ballpark.

And every once in a while McGill pulls out the ol' acoustic and plays something more sensitive, though not usually more than once or twice per album, as in Winter's Tale from 2002: