Mezzoforte from Iceland (1979 ST and 1980 Octopus aka I Hakanum)

 

Light and pleasant fusion sounds from this band that was quite prolific from the late 1970s onwards, as you can see here.

Mezzoforte is an Icelandic, instrumental jazz-funk/fusion band, formed in 1977. They signed a record deal with Icelandic label Steinar. Their biggest hit single was Garden Party (1983), taken from their fourth album (second international release), Surprise Surprise. It peaked at number 17 in the UK Singles Chart. The solo that takes place two minutes into 'Garden Party', was created and played on the flugelhorn by English trumpeter, Stephen Dawson. 'Garden Party' was later covered by Herb Alpert at a slower speed than the original, apparently as he'd learned the track from the single played at the wrong speed. Another single, Rockall, spent one week at number 75 in the same listing in June that year, and was used as a signature tune by several European radio chart shows.

And, obviously:

The band was named after the traditional musical term mezzo forte, an instruction to play, literally, "moderately loud".

The opener of the first from 1979, Kinahverfio:

Northern Winds from the 2nd:

Personally, I was not so impressed with their 'big hit,' Garden Party, but I'm sure others were.

Tilsley - Haseley - Flick in Byways, from 1976

 

Information here, mostly composed by Reginald Tilsley.  You can see from his discography he led an orchestra and / or composed orchestral music, then made some libraries in the 1970s.

The description is quite appropriate: 

light group sounds featuring keyboards

I was struck by how lovely his composition called Clarissa is, with the different keyboards recalling our beloved Hawkshaw:

Porcelain, also by Tilsley:

Simon Haseley and Paul Kass in Prototype from 1972

 

Information here. 

Simon Haseley was another highly prolific library composer.  Paul Kass was less so, discographed here.

A note about the cute graphic for the cover.  This is from Nick Bantock, who made some absolutely gorgeous cover graphics (for various LPs mostly library ones) back in the day, then in the early1990s became hugely successful with the 'mixed-media' picture book called Griffin and Sabine.  If you take a look at those album covers, there are some really mind-blowing ones among the pages and pages to look through.  Rubber Riff, with members of Soft Machine, is one of the more famous ones.  I posted Simon Park's Stretch not long ago.  He was also responsible for the cover of Chatton's Vapour Trails. His prolific output continues all the way until 1991 when, presumably, his success with the aforementioned publication overtook this accessory endeavour.

Back to the music though.  Overall, it's light and gentle and infinitely agreeable, all instrumental of course. Sample tracks, Propshaft:

And Sunlight:

Powerhouse 5 + 4; 1975 [FLAC limited time only]

Needless to indicate there are many artists called Powerhouse, but this particular formation's info can be found here.  Description therein:

Collection of tracks originally composed by Al Newman and performed by Powerhouse in 1975. Peer International Library was part of the Standard Music Library organization and was responsible for 45 releases between 1969 and 1980...

Apart from this, I don't see a lot of credits for the composer Al Newman.  That's unfortunate because this particular library release has quite a few gems on it.  Overall the music is nice and funky uptempo rocking energetic instrumentals, similar in sound to the Rock Machine by Hawkshaw once posted.

Late Summer has such a great groove, and the arrangement is so perfectly done too:

Almost as groovy is Injury Time:

Brian Parrish's Love on my Mind from 1976

 

Brian Parrish made only one LP in the seventies, with basic funky pop.  Description:

British guitarist and songwriter (now resident in Germany), from the '60s to the present.

Brian Chatton, keyboardist of Jackson Heights, and whose 1980 library Vapour Trails was posted back here, appears on this record, which is the reason I was led to check it out.

Music was written by Parrish.  Sample, representative track, I got a Feeling:

Another one called I don't know what you got:

Bosque Sound Community's Four Noble Truths, from 2015 [limited time only]

 

Here's a really shocking find by a friend, many many thanks for the discovery.  The entry in discogs has Bosque as artist name, not the more extended Bosque Sound Community.

Bosque Sound Community was formed in Belgrade in the middle of 2015. Band is led by Miloš Bosnić double bass and bass guitar player from Belgrade, by his side also Stevan Milijanović – keyboard, Aleksa Milijanović– drums, Aleksandar Radulović (2) – percussion and Dušan Petrović (2) – saxophone. The sound is based on contemporary jazz fusion. The music represents a mixture of influences by various genres, mostly inspired by the 20th century art. 'Four Noble Truths' is their first album which was published in December 2015.

The band is led by Milos Bosnic, doublebass and bass guitar player, whose idea was to gather a group of friends and record his first album.

The overall sound is based on the classics of instrumental jazz-rock, think Nucleus, or the early 1970s Herbie Hancock sound, etc., with a mixture of influences of various musical and stylistic genres. 

Right from the get-go you can get an idea of the sound and approach of these skilled musicians from the first track, with the odd title of Residex P:

The title track, also the highlight of the release, clocking in at more than 20 minutes, is quite impressive although, as one might expect, a little bogged down by the musicians' soloing.

Credits:

Bass - Miloš Bosnić

Guitar - Igor Mišković

Keyboards - Dejan Nikolić

Drums - Strahinja Stojanov

Soprano Saxophone - Dušan Petrović

Composed and arranged by Miloš Bosnić

Recorded and produced by Nemanja Lazarević

Recorded at VISER AVT studio in august 2015, Belgrade

Nono Soderberg (1976 Nono, 1982 Rare Bird)

 

Info:

Real Name: Arno Arvid Söderberg

Profile: Finnish bassist and guitarist. Born on September 8, 1945.

I think the first one from 1976 is a hugely underrated fusion LP.  It has an enormous amount of variety and emotional diversity.  The follow up that came in 1982 unfortunately was disappointing, and almost all commercial style fuzak, apart from the beautiful vocal title track.

Note that he did appear before in connection with the Pop-Liisa series back here.  The tracks called Tide and Seagull appeared there, in live and different versions.  Apart from that, he was in multiple jazz, fusion, or rock bands in his home country, almost none of which I'm familiar with except supergroup Unisono (feat. the great Pohjola) which superficially should be a wonderful fusion album but which I've always found disappointing every time I return to it, which I probably shouldn't.

I'll post his Seagull as it is more than a little similar to the last selection (at the bottom):

For a much more tender acoustic track recalling the best of Euro-fusion like Finnforest, Transit Express, Moose Loose, etc. here's The Ninth Wave:

Really, a beautiful, strong album, from start to finish: 'no filler, all killer.'  I love it when fusion mixes high energy with acoustic delicatesse.

Here's the aforementioned Oh Rare Bird title track from the second album, which had the misfortune of appearing in the 1980s decade, with vocals:

I guess listening to that one after Seagull, back to back, the latter is just the former with added vocals.  An amazing melody though altogether, with the odd 'n' original chord changes.

Jackson Heights 2 (Ragamuffins Fool, 1972 - Bump and Grind, 1973)

 

Well, their third album called Ragamuffins Fool for me was their best, and had a lovely Fruup-like or Renaissance-like cover as well.  By far the best song is one called Bebop, which, actually, is so good in my opinion that in the space of one day it shot up to the top of the charts for my personal playlist, and I could go on forever about it.  I love the lyrics which are painfully naive and sweet, presumably the singer has a crush on a beautiful girl he sees on the train:

"you can tell she's an actress, by the way she moves her eyes, sympathizing quietly over other people's lives, souping up the bebop, getting on the train, rock and roll the windows, here we come again--"

Harmonically, the song has the diatonic G major 7 sound played by the soprano piano pattern at the outset, but the descending chord progression fits perfectly with the subject matter of the train ride:

The last album from 1973 has the terrible album cover photo, and in general a reduction in quality makes it somewhat less compelling to me.  However, the one song called Bump and Grind, again, is out of the ballpark in terms of the lush arrangement and creative chord progression and just the blatant originality of the melodic composition:

 

It's hard to understand how they could be so uneven.  If you check out the 3 reviews posted on the discogs page here, ignoring the outlier, you can get a rough idea of the quality.

After this, founder Lee Jackson was in the amazing 1974 album Refugee with genius keyboardist Patrick Moraz, I guess a prog touchstone for sure, but surprisingly didn't put out much more (though again I might be wrong).  I love the Grand Canyon Suite from that work.

Jackson Heights 1 (King Progress, 1970 - The Fifth Avenue Bus, 1972)

 

Profile:

English rock band founded in 1970 by Lee Jackson after The Nice split-up, and disbanded in 1973, when he joined drummer Brian "Blinky" Davison to form Refugee (2) with Patrick Moraz.

For those well versed in prog rock, esp. the British variety, this band reminds me of Capability Brown - Voices (with the super-lush barbershop vocals turned down though) or perhaps the later Pretty Things, with their wide mix of psych, prog, songwriting, ordinary pop, and elaborate vocals.  Most of the material is relatively ordinary songwriting if you understand what I mean, but I love that here and there they throw in some wildly creative harmonies or ideas.  In that way, similar to Pretty Things, or early Manfred Mann maybe, or Fleetwood Mac in its more basic early 1970s days, before they got overly commercial.

In case you haven't noticed I have to point out the unbelievable Hipgnosis (1968 to 1982) cover art of King Progress, a design group we all know well and love from their Pink Floyd covers.  I have to say that artwork on its own would probably make the LP worth purchasing for me, it's so utterly bizarre, and the colors so compelling.

The title track of that first work has a lovely string quartet arrangement (think of how many albums, songs, artists, were influenced by George Martin's brilliant arrangements for the Beatles, cf. Yesterday, Eleanor Rigby):

It's not clear to me from the different releases and their credits who was responsible for those lovely arrangements, which appear throughout their works in different guises.

I felt the second album from 1972 was a little underwhelming.  I'll borrow the review on discogs that to me overstates the case a bit:

Melodic rock with a hint of pop appeal that balances on the edge of the acceptable, but fortunately mostly succeeds through quite some unexpected twists that season the music. The keyboards are generally lovely, which is a rare thing to encounter within this style. Multi-part vocals are a bonus and give the music at times even a west-coast flavour. Almost all of side A convinces, except a tedious pianosolo on Sweet hill tunnel. This song has the advantage of a blood-curdling harmonic twist at the end that will send your hair a-flying, though. Pity that side B cannot maintain this level. The songs sound like weaker versions of those on side A. Mostly this side sounds over-polished and routine. The last track, a biting satire on living life as a pastor, makes up for the lost opportunity. This again is rich and variable music.

The best track I think is House in the Country, it's too bad it's so short:

For me, this is a totally unknown band that doesn't deserve it at all, like so many other artists here on this blog.  I'll be back in a couple of days with part 2 from their oeuvre.

For those who live in the new world, by the way, Jackson Heights:

Jackson Heights is a diverse neighborhood in Queens, New York City, known for its rich multicultural population and vibrant food scene. It is home to large South Asian and South American communities, as well as a significant LGBTQ+ population. The area is recognized for its unique cultural enclaves, like "Little India," and offers a wide variety of international cuisines.  

John Robinson's 1974 Pity for the Victim

 

I saw this artist in connection with the earlier posted Beramiada, by Jackie Orszaczky, which was undoubtedly brilliant.  There, John Robinson was the guitarist, and you can see his relatively short discography here.  He was an Aussie who earlier was in a band called Blackfeather, basic blues rock so far as I can tell.  No resemblance to Jackie's chef d'oeuvre.

This solo album, presumably his only one, is a pretty good mix of hard rock guitar and as expected, given the times, fusion, maybe a little similar to the Jeff Beck masterwork, or perhaps Big Jim Sullivan's work posted here.  If you're looking for a mixture type of release, then this is the right album for you, but for me it's a bit too mixed to be as good as all the other aforementioned works, specifically that is there are bluesy numbers, silly numbers, spoken parts, etc.  When the compositions are strong, they're really interesting, but a little marred by confused arrangements.

The opener (with the lovely title of A God Called Free) gives you a really good idea of the kind of frantic production is exhibited:

While the AM Mail to M. instrumental track highlights the creativity:

Snafu Part 2 (All Funked Up 1975, Live recorded in 1976)

 

I liked the third album from 1975, which shows no diminishment in quality at all, consider Deep Water:

Or, Dancing Feet:

However the live one was disappointing, as live albums usually are for me.  Note that it was recorded in 1976, released in 2018. Notes from inside:

Recorded live on 23rd January 1976, Trent Polytechnic, Nottingham

Sound on the night, John Moon, John Aarnold and Geoff Woodward.

SNAFU were at the peak of their creative and live capabilities when they performed at the Refectory

at Trent Polytechnic in 1976 with three ground breaking albums already released and their stock high

amongst both fans and fellow musicians. However at the end of this tour a very young MICKY MOODY

accepted David Coverdale’s offer to join his new band WHITESNAKE and his departure effectively bought

about the end of SNAFU.

BOBBY HARRISON bought in Clem Clempson to fill the gap but says “It didn’t really work out. This

concert is us at our best. I am very proud of the albums we released and how fondly today we are

remembered”.

Snafu Part 1 (1973, and Situation Normal 1974)

 

Profile:

British rhythm and blues / rock band formed in January 1973 shortly after Bobby Harrison had completed his first solo album. He used Micky Moody on sessions for the album and they decided to start a band. Mick got in touch with Colin Gibson, who was doing sessions at the time and they were later joined by Peter Solley and Terry Popple.

Definitely in the basic blues rock category, with good compositions here and there and little progressiveness.  Enjoyable on the basis of the energy and high level of musical competence.

From the first album, the song called Drowning in the sea of love sounds like it should have been a huge radio hit back in the day-- not now of course:

Goodbye USA is surely and sadly an apt song title for these troubled times:

From the second album, Jessie Lee:

Bobby Harrison's Funkist from 1975

 

Bio:

English singer/songwriter and drummer, born June 22, 1939 in London, died on January 10, 2022. Bobby Harrison’s history can be traced back to the late fifties and the legendary Brentwood, UK group The Rockefellas. Subsequently, during the early part of the sixties, he was in Golden Apples Of The Sun, who signed to Andrew Loog Oldham’s Immediate label and released one single, Monkey Time, in 1965. Following that, Harrison formed the CBS-signed Powerpack, who put out two singles in 1966 and 1967. Backed by famous jazzman Ronnie Scott, Bobby also released his first record in his own name for CBS in the mid-sixties, a version of the song Sonny. Harrison then became one of the original members of Procol Harum during the spring of 1967, when the group recorded their famous No 1 single, A Whiter Shade Of Pale. However, at the same time as the record was at the top of the charts all over the world, Harrison and the band’s guitarist left the group to form their own outfit, Freedom. His solo album Funkist has material written for Freedom and is considered to be the "missing link" in Bobby Harrison’s career between Freedom and Snafu, which he formed early 1973. The band lasted until the mid 1970s. In the early eighties, Harrison decided to move to Iceland. There he got involved with many musical activities and also recorded one album with local supergroup Mezzoforte in 1987.

This is his only output from the magical decade of the 1970s and of course it's pure funky rock.  Highly enjoyable nonetheless, or rather, as a result.

Spotlight:

I'll post the Snafu stuff next.