NTSU One O'clock Lab Band, Lab 2020

 

More from this talented group of students that seemingly never fail.

Juris Diction:

Back to the NTSU with lab '80

Great cover art!  Just unbelievable design there, the ideas they came up with back in the day...

Information here.  The music still stands strong at this time, already on the cusp of the 80s flood of nutty dance music, the death of fusion and the resurgence of acoustic jazz.

Note the subtle intricacy, the classical education, and the interesting changes throughout the very interesting chart called Winds of Boreas, a composition by woodwinds, etc. player Mario Cruz:

I'm more than a little puzzled there isn't more to discover in this gentleman's discography.  From side b, Tear Drops, by Mike Smith:

NTSU's One O'Clock Lab Band in 2018, The Rhythm of the Road

 

Quite surprisingly these guys held up all the way into the recent years. To my utter surprise.

The remarkable composition called Birds of a Feather:

Amazingly back to the NTSU with Lab '81

I never would have thought I'd return to this series, but here we are.  Good thing I did return, because this one is good.  Showing I should have pursued it farther and not given up.  A couple of 'throwaway' standard charts and the remainder very strong fusion-big band composition with some really intelligent ideas, all on 2-LP set.  Many, many thanks to the ripper!

Evening in Lucerne:

Lovely stuff.

NTSU Lab Band & The Bowie (Maryland) Senior High School "Starliners" ‎– 12 By 3 from 1971

A 2 LP set this time.


An astounding track credited to Pete Myers, trumpeter and composer in the Oliver Nelson Band, is called As in Wheaties?






Bear in mind this is the strongest track and nothing quite comes close.

NTSU Lab Band, Leon Breeden, Director: Lab '76

A track called The Myth of Sisyphos (composed by Paul Loomis) couldn't possibly disappoint us, could it:





What do you think? Disappointed?  If not, certainly the remainder of this record won't disappoint you.

Back to NTSU with Leon Breeden ‎and Lab '74!

The well written fusion proceeds apace here, with a record almost bereft of silly old jazz standards (just a Gershwin composition) and instead stuffed full with wonderfully confident composing and arranging, as evidenced by Warp Factor:





One of three written by a young Lyle Mays.

NTSU Lab Band in 1971, plus 67, 82, thanks to Simon666

The last cover, its artwork so French, I love it.

Thanks to blogger Simon666 from the rhodes blog of course, we have more from this hugely talented band led by Leon Breeden to add to earlier installments from 1980 and 1975 + 1978.  (And, btw, in the future I'll be posting a lot of new rips from other years of the decade).  So by that time we'll have covered more than 15 years of the discography and then reassess.  One thing I can assure you, if you didn't already realize it: each of the LPs is worth hearing and is guaranteed to contain at least one superb gemological fusion treat.  We saw that especially with the Zebra Soars.

So for example from 1967, usually not a very promising year for fusion except if your name is Miles Davis, there's the track called Anadge:





That stunningly advanced chart written by Robert Morgan, described as a high school jazz band director.  Most of that summer of love year, predictably for the jazz phylum of the kingdom of music/life, is merely cover songs of such ancient, prezoic standards as Nature Boy (George Benson did the best version of that song ever in my opinion).

So moving on to the year 1971 we have a more promising entry, just casually looking at the kooky song titles.  First of all, the artwork is just wonderful, recalling as it does the communist geometric art of those ancient Melodiya Russian jazz LPs we know so well.  God bless the great old union of soviet republics (cccp), soon to be new union of putin republics (ccpp?).  And it would be perfectly true to say this record, from beginning to end, is well worth listening to in the most intent manner you can muster, these days, with wife and screaming kids, sorry, I meant screaming wife and kids in the near distance here at all times.  From beginning track to the extended composition called Liferaft Earth that closes it out.  The A2 track Badi' is my favourite:





It's warm and smooth, but really rewards close listening with its odd chord transformations, as well as the sudden alterations in rhythm and abrupt modulation and it's written by one Jim Milne (if this database if correct).

As might be expected, by 1982 we can no longer bank on the same kind of magical composition.  Why?  I'm not so sure myself, but the 'I want my MTV push' sure wanted simplified music too, and they sure got it.  I have trouble finding a really well written piece on this one, but maybe the Northern Lights comes close:




 At the same time, it doesn't quite compare to the sample immediately above it.

So instead let's look forward to the coming installments, as I said...

NTSU's The Zebras in The Spirit Soars from 1980

Here's some fantastic fusion that I can guarantee you've never heard before, at least not here before, again from the North Texas State University-- what a hotbed of jazzical musicality!  Checking in the database here you can see this dynamic group comprised a number of keyboard players, with the producer being Dan Haerle (who wrote some of the tracks).  The reason for all this is clear from the back blurb:

"In Feb. 1980, Dan Haerle, associate professor of music and a member of the jazz studies faculty at the NTSU school of music formed an electronic keyboard ensemble, appropriately called The Zebras.  The ensemble consists of 5 keyboard players, a bass player, drummer and percussionist, all students at NTSU.  Each of the k. players plays two or more instruments such as electric piano, organ, clavinet, string or bass ensemble and monophonic or polyphonic synthesizers.  This versatility results in up to 15 different keyboards being played at the same time in concerts.  The musical effect is that of a well-produced record album that requires extensive overdubbing of parts in a recording studio, but can be created in a live performance by The Z.  The original purpose of The Z., was to provide advanced k. players in the jazz studies program at NTSU with an intensive reading situation typical of contemporary studio work.  Also, the music performed by The Z. is usually new and related to current music idioms that involve electronics, such as funk and fusion styles.  The scope of The Z. repertoire, as evidenced on their first album, is quite varied, and ranges from Bach to bebop and 'space music'.  The Z. have performed at the Wichita (Kansas) Jazz Festival and at the National Association of Jazz Educators' Convention in Chicago in January 1982 where producer Vince Morette heard them for the first time.  It was as a result of this first hearing that Mark Records was fortunate enough to bring to you: The Zebras."

And fortunate we are to hear them too, with this their sole release.  Consistently excellent from beginning to end in my opinion, the high energy and the differences in sound, as mentioned due to the use of various keyboards, make this a fantastic slice of the college band days -- R.I.P...

An amazing composition from one of the keyboardists, Bill Howard, called M-87, reminds me a lot of pro New Zealand fusioneers Dr. Tree, with its madly mobile dissonances riffing over the thumpingly off-binary bass rhythms:





Yeah, the Spirit surely soared, back then-- fer shure...

North Texas State University Lab Band (NTSU) in '75 and '78

The series was recommended by a commentator and when I saw the 1975 installment with the involvement of Chick Corea and Lyle Mays, I knew it had to be worth hearing.  The B1 track is in fact the sole composition from the former luminary, and it's called What Was, available for your listening pleasure here on youtube.

Just to backtrack a little, the discography makes it clear this was a very enduring franchise in the pantheon of university jazz big bands, which we've already covered pretty extensively.  Note the famed Peabody College one, for example.  On Wikipedia you can find an extensive history, perhaps too extensive, where the band is called the "One O'clock Lab Band," but:

Leon Breeden (1921–2010) presided when "The One O'Clock" was added as part of the official name in the early 1960s. North Texas has several lab bands, each bearing the name of their respective rehearsal times.  When Leon Breeden took over the Lab Band Program in 1959, there were four lab bands, then referred to as "Units:" One O'Clock, Two O'Clock, Three O'Clock, and Five O'Clock. At that time, the Two O'Clock was the premier band known as Laboratory Dance Band A.

Note that from wikipedia's Lyle Mays page, you can see that at the tender age of 22:

He graduated from the University of North Texas after attending the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. He composed and arranged for the One O'Clock Lab Band and was the composer and arranger of Grammy nominated album Lab 75.

I'm going to be brutally honest here and state that his contributions were a bit disappointing to me, especially given the creative oddness of the titles of his pieces which raises high expectations, having little resemblance to the masterpieces with Metheny and on his solo album.

The 1978 installment is a really tastefully smooth and enjoyable slice of big band fusion from the late 70s, very typical of the times and their far remove from the unfortunate early days of the big band genre. The first track from 1978 called Elf: