Dutch composer Rogier von Otterloo: Telepathy, Visions, On the Move (1973 to 1975)

 

Note the cigar in his mouth on the last cover photo, and cigarette in his hand on the top one -- he passed away in his 40s of mesothelioma (a type of lung cancer).

First of all I'm going to state, I'm shocked there is still so much amazing music to be discovered from this time period: original, creative, progressive.  And these are perfect examples, which is why I've ramped up the posting to several times a week, to go through my backlog of beautiful music. 

The important thing to understand is that not just in English countries but all over the world there was a hugely fertile feeling for musical composition in those years wherein everything came together perfectly (jazz, rock, classical), and this is where exploring lesser known countries' artists becomes so fruitful, as in this case, where we have a guy who's basically the Dutch Morricone, known primarily as a soundtrack composer in his country.

As usual the brief discogs bio to open:

Pianist, composer, arranger and conductor, born 11 December 1941 in Amsterdam, Netherlands, died 29 January 1988 in Bilthoven, Netherlands. Son of Willem Van Otterloo, father of composer, arranger, saxophonist and conductor Thijs van Otterloo. Probably best known as film music composer for Paul Verhoeven-directed movies Turks Fruit / Turkish Delight (1973) and Soldaat van Oranje / Soldier of Orange (1977). Van Otterloo was Chief Conductor of the Metropole Orkest from September 1st 1980 until his death in 1988.

So as was so common in that decade, in the middle of the 1970s he made these 2 brilliant LPs, all-self-composed, no standards, no filler, no cover versions, called Visions (1974) and On the Move (1975), that I daresay are probably forgotten not just everywhere in the world, but also in his own country. (I'm also going to guess they did poorly commercially, compared to the easy listening LPs full of Beatles and Bacharach hits.) These mix on a basis of orchestral easy listening a bunch of incredible ideas ranging from classical to fusion, maybe a little similar to Peter Wolf's 1980 masterpiece posted here, except that this music has its basis in classical orchestra, versus fusion / jazz.  

Probably the best composition (out of many that stand out) from the former album is 2 of a Kind:

The harmonica is played, obviously, by Toots Thielemans (who else?).  In that piece the original chord changes Rogier came up with are the really amazing aspect.

While from the 1975 On the Move, a track that really stands out is Alfie's Lullaby (his son, not the movie with Michael Caine):

From the 1973 album with pianist Louis van Dyke the track called Moment Supreme is absolutely mind-blowing in its beauty, to me:

This one really reminds me of my old fave Claus Ogerman, esp. in the concerto-like interplay between piano and orchestral passages that echo each other, and the gentle chord structures playing melodies.

One more thing to add, I listened to the 3-CD 'Collected Works' from 2003, and it's absolutely criminal that barely a couple of these masterpiece tracks appeared on there, versus his more generic soundtrack material such as Soldat von Oranje.

Closely examining his discography, you can observe that the majority of his albums are easy listening orchestral LPs almost entirely consisting of cover versions (done presumably to pay the bills), but note also this original composition, the only one, from the 1973 Nuages album, called Sagitta featuring the transcendentally beautiful Rhodes piano sound (here played by Rob Franken):

Surely we all agree it's brilliant?  

Again, that one was left off the Collected Works-- can you imagine??