Jean Vasca's Midi, 1975

Time and again we've encountered this conundrum, the well-written even gorgeous music, somewhat marred by spoken words or poetry above it, distracting from the quality of the composition.

This French gentleman wrote both music and poetry for a long series of albums, beginning in the early sixties, continuing on into the 2000s, even releasing a CD a few years before passing away in 2016 at the age of 76. For those who are familiar with his older compatriot Leo Ferre (those dozen or so people outside of France that is, lol) the sound is almost the same except Jean uses a bit more contemporary instrumentation in comparison.  Based on his 2-CD collection which I listened to, Midi stands above all the rest of his albums in terms of the quality of the musical composition, not surprising, given it came out in 1975 when there was so much interest in progressive music.

Moi je suis de la nuit:

The title track:

I find it somewhat distracting that instead of purely speaking or purely singing he kind of does both, imitating a melody with words, as it were, without actually singing in tune, even though there does seem to be a composed melody in there somewhere. On the other hand for those who understand French, the poetry is quite beautiful and imaginative, full of jarring metaphor.

Alfonso Carlos Santisteban [Spanish Moog, Jazz para una noche de Verano, Situazioni Per Orchestra, Night Club]

Discogs:

Alfonso Carlos Santisteban (Madrid, 1943 - Málaga, 2013) was a Spanish film soundtracks and library music composer, arranger, producer and orchestra leader.

Focused on lounge and easy listening and on Soul-Jazz Funk, Pop & Psychedelic. He composed soundtracks to over 100 movies.

L'Orecchio:

By request, Morrissey Mullen in 5 LPs 1977 to 1983

This group, discogged here, starts off in relatively trad. jazz mode in the first and somewhat disappointing LP from 1977 called Up.

Wikipedia has an entry that begins thusly:

Morrissey–Mullen were a British jazz-funk/fusion group of the 1970s and 1980s.

Considered one of the most popular jazz groups in London,[3] the band was led by Dick Morrissey on tenor and soprano saxes and flute, and Jim Mullen on guitar, who joined forces in 1975, playing together for sixteen years, during which they came to be known as "Mr Sax and Captain Axe" because of their hallmark call and response style between guitar and saxophone.

Subsequently the Cape Wrath album from 1979 turned out to be quite interesting. Consider the title track:

It closes out with the sweet Night Song:

Note that the lovely orchestral arrangements were done by this gentleman, Max Middleton, who made a similar sounding fusion record with Robert Ahwai in 1979 called Another Sleeper, which everyone should know and hear and love.

For the always precarious and usually disappointing post 80s transition, I have trouble finding a song that I can really love, predictably the sound becomes really smooth and commercialized even by the time of 1981's Badness esp. with the addition of very radio-friendly vocals by the female...

But the wonderful Cape Wrath, notable too for its beautiful Terminator-like cover art (long before its time), is well worth hearing and thanks for the request!

Brian Keane's Snowfalls, from 1986

 

Recall his association with Larry Coryell here.

Although this clearly seemed like a new agey solo guitar work, the kind we've heard so many times already in the past, I thought I would give this one a try. So it turns out it's a new agey solo guitar work, the kind we've heard so many times already.  The wiki page is here (wait, what? as the kids will say, yes this CD appears on wiki), discogs page here.

Here's Ruby C.:

As usual with this kind of album, the extreme virtuosity and peaceful ASMR type of feeling the guitar induces is always highly impressive and soporific.  I posted so many like this from German guitarists, who often combined two acoustic guitars for an even more sedative effect.  (I guess so much so in effect that it also prompted amnesia because I can't remember their names.)

Again by request, 1981 Alen from Spain

 

Discogs:

Jazz band from Getxo in outer Bilbao in northern Spain. The band first played together on 19 November 1979 at which time the musicians all were in their late teens or early twenties.

A little bit too much in the conventional or traditional jazz arena, there are some departures or brief excursions into more fusionast sounds or thoughtfully composed passages straying away from the dixieland blues scales or circles of fifths that permeate most of this. So occasionally, a bit of an odd conjunction like on the song called Antxoen hezle, with its standard jazz piano opening chords, and progressive middle section: