Mahavishnu – Estival Jazz, Padiglione Arte Casa, Lugano, Switzerland 7/1/86

In conversation, cutting off Orchestra from the Mahavishnu modifier saves time, but on paper it means an entirely different thing, in this case the mid-80s jazzrock group led by John McLaughlin that has very little to do with the original Orchestra, mark 1 or 2. This band practically defined the modern fusion sound as further developed in solo by bassist Jonas Hellborg and it’s a perfect case where my personal aesthetics, which tend to be 70s and analog friendly, clash with the timbres of the era, which moved from the warmth of analog keys to early, limited digital tones. Since McLaughlin is flirting with jazzrock again without naming the band any variation of Mahavishnu, it does make you wonder if there’s an inspired purpose behind the use of the name, but already I digress tediously. From a musical perspective a two disc show like this is going to give the group a bit more leeway than the substandard studio album and with the players involved it’s really hard to just stop and say I dislike the sounds as there is actually quite a bit of musical color here. Unfortunately there are also those occasional modern jazz rock tangents that evoke smooth jazz and other safer moves, that often make me forget whose piloting this ship. But overall the show improved my opinion of this era, when the one that came with the Montreux set really didn’t. Course the band had a good two years of growth in between.

Various Artists – The Best of Star Trek 30th Anniversary Special!

It’s funny in listening to this that the very first impressions I had of some of those 70s Zao and Yochk’o Seffer albums reminded me of some of the music from the original Star Trek. Lots of chromaticism and unearthly melodies that always accentuated the alienness of the show and were apparently memorable as well. This disc sort of goes over various Star Trek musical highlights from the television show, offshoots and movies and I was inspired to write about it mostly because of how strong most of this music is even outside the context of the visuals. Yeah, skipping the actual theme tunes help (I can think of VERY few shows I don’t do this to – I guess I should be glad the one from Enterpise isn’t here) and there isn’t a great deal of that original, weird music, but there is a smattering of various orchestral pieces that suprised me in their effectiveness. In fact there was some rather great music from the first movie here, which I’m not sure I ever got through in its entirety. So yeah, this was kind of a surprise, not only in that I found myself listening to it in the first place.

Jethro Tull – BBC 2/19/77

I’m not particularly fond of Songs from the Wood era Jethro Tull, despite the fact that it’s often quoted as one of their better albums. I think it’s sort of an observation on those albums between Thick as a Brick and Songs in how so little of it made it to their concert sets, other than when the band was touring on a particular album. But given the fact that Songs doesn’t do it for me, that the video I saw from this year didn’t either and nor did the one or two audio shows I’ve heard from this period, I was really surprised at what a fine set of recordings the BBC had on hand. Much more energy and drive here than I remembered, which makes me wonder if this is either a fluke or me finally growing to this.

Marc Ribot – Plays Solo Guitar Work of Frantz Casseus

Solo guitar work by the indefatigable guitarist who might turn up almost anywhere.  What more can you say about a guy who can work in just about every style imaginable? Whether he’s skronking it up roughly or playing the gentle classical guitar work of Frantz Casseus, Ribot always seems to succeed and even if I’m in no place to be able to appraise the work of either artist, I was surprisingly engaged through this solo work, and I’m not someone who tends to really gravitate to works like this. The music has a certain sort of melodic style that works around more familiar scales while always hanging in there in terms of its friendliness.

Daevid Allen / Don Falcone – Obscura 12 – Glissando Grooves

An intriguing collaboration between the Gong and Spaceship Eyes chiefs but like a lot of these projects that ride between ambience and electronica, I tend to prefer the former style and even if there aren’t really that many true beats here, the ones that do work in seem just like any other sort of rave or house style. But aside from that personal issue, there’s also a great deal of psychedelia here, the stuff that reminds me of Allen’s work all the way back to his late 60s sound collages. It’s all liberally drenched with a lot of atmospheric synth work and strangely sounds a little like Berliner synth in parts, but overall this is the sort of cosmic/modern headspace fans of the artists involved will already likely expect. Of course any sort of heavy textural music with Allen waxing poetic over the top is usually of interest in these parts.

Mingus - Mingus in Europe

A big sprawling concert, originally from two volumes, from Wuppertal, Town Hall, West Germany 4/26/64, this features Mingus roughly around his Impulse period, leading a quintet with Eric Dolphy and Jacki Byard involved. There’s never a question with Mingus that his sense of composition and his melodic framework didn’t work very close to the trends of the time and much of this sounds like it has its roots in a bop a decade earlier, even if the actual melodic lines touch on areas that could only possibly come from the mind of this bass player. The live music stretches out a little more, but overall it doesn’t stay terribly highly charged and for my ears, I started tuning out a little in the second half, but that’s more likely due to the challenge of the writing than a reflection on the quality here.

Gyorgy Ligeti (Esa-Pekka Salonen, Philharmonic Orchestra) – Le Grand Macabre

I don’t listen to a lot of classical music (and I guess you could probably classify this as an opera as well). A small part of it is a bit of apathy to the museum-like feel some recordings bring along with them, but the other part is the proverbial opening of the can of worms, that is at this point who needs a new hobby? But occasionally I’ll pull something out and I’ve always been a bit curious about Ligeti and the big bad. Anyway I’m well out of my league in terms of describing this from a musical perspective as this is avantgarde music sprawled across two discs. For the most part it seems to be this ever increasing movement toward the bizarre and evil, starting sparsely and moving towards some tremendous, crazy climaxes. There were times, especially on the second disc where it felt like being in some dark Renaissance-era painting featuring the good and bad angels warring with another, with the latter starting to turn the tide. It’s obvious some incredible vocal talent had to be used here as some of the singing could break windows and the spiralling, almost pagan like chanting really lifts the intensity of the work. Unsurprisingly for its reputation I found myself pretty enthralled by the whole thing, one can only imagine its impact on the music scene if it was written a few hundred years before. File alongside John of Patmos or ergot poisoning.

Django Reinhardt – Quintet of Le Hat Club France, Original Recordings

This features some really old jazz (the 30s I believe), definitely stepping back to a period I’m mostly unfamiliar with and like some old Charlie Parker recordings this isn’t perfect quality, while still having a sense of vitality that gives it some gravitas. It also has the estimable Stephane Grappeli on violin and he tends to lead the melodies, which like a great deal of the period, were upbeat peppy and quite virtuoso. Definitely a style of music well before any of the avantgarde and outside forms of jazz, at least it doesn’t tend to have some of the hokey feel I tend to get from Dixieland and other very early jazz forms. Quite enjoyable.

Paul Motian/The Electric Bebop Band – Play Monk and Powell

Motian works with Dave Holland band players and others in this electric tribute to the named composers. Already such a combination will give the proceedings just a bit of an out feel, an area Motian has always hovered around. I was probably a little more famliar with the Monk stuff like Brilliant Corners than I was the work of Bud Powell and in fact it tended to be the Monk stuff that kept me more engaged. Overall I didn’t lean too much in either direction, certainly a pleasant listen, but there wasn’t an incredible fire either.

Cream –  ”Trinity,” Marquee Club, Soho, London 5/23/67

Long before there were jesters and facepaint, Cream played the venerable Marquee Club, probably on multiple occasions. Readers may have guessed that I’m utterly fanatic when it comes to this period of the band (or I’ll revise that by the end of this entry), when this trio were one of the very best live bands in existence. Apparently they weren’t quite there yet based on this May show, maybe a few months off before they hit the United States and proceeded to annihilate crowds with their fantastic songs and powerful jams. For one thing, this Trinity recording is just horrible, muffled to the point that it shouldn’t have been propagated at all. It doesn’t even hurt as the band didn’t seem to be too inspired this night. There’s better elsewhere.

Bancco del Mutuo Soccorso – Rio Art Rock Festival 2000 (video)

I think the one and only time I saw Banco was around this time, at the final Progfest. As you can tell by popping over to Gnosis, this is a band that is enormously popular for progressive rock fans as they have a musical sophistication and melodic and dramatic balance that tends to hit just about everyone’s buttons. Although, I must say music like this tends to be just a bit too high drama for my normal moods, and it takes some adjustment for me to get into now, in fact it took about an hour or so into this two hour video, where the band gets really deep into the old classics, for me to start paying a lot of attention, and most of it was due to Nocenzi’s (Vittorio? I’m not looking this up…) ambidextrous keyboard playing. I mean he’s fantastic, really fantastic, the kind of shit that would make Rick Wakeman sit down for a bit. Overall I’m not sure Banco have perfectly made the transition to modern band, in that some of the tones, especially in the guitars and drums kind of overwhelm the music, which is so ornate and elaborate that it takes a bit of attention to pick up on it all.

Herbie Hancock – Strata Concert Gallery, Detroit, MI 2/20/73

This is one sprawling, epic, Sextant era-show, from FM soundboard and served in chunks as short as 11 1/2 minutes all the way to 42 and change, the whole show closing in on close to three hours in length. If you’re a fan it’s enough to lose bladder control and I might have if the show didn’t take its time to get going. Everything here moves in long periods of time, in fact in listening to this it’s just an incredible change in style for him to go in the Headhunters direction, as this is Hancock about as out as he ever got. For one thing, that is if you can really say just one thing about a show of this length and of this spectrum, the band is basically still jazz, but there are electronics and instrumental pallettes that identify this as something really cosmic. There’s Eddie Henderson blowing over the top, but to hear the band so free below him implies directions more expressed in Henderson’s own post Mwandishi solo albums than in Hancock’s own recorded work. In many ways this isn’t even a reflection of Sextant, which is so much more focused and lush, while this has so much room that the musicians improvise for long periods before coming back to anything familiar. Is there more of this stuff? Because there appears to be so much more to the Mwandishi>Sextant>Headhunters arc than appears on paper. This is a real revelation!

Emma Myldenberger – Tour de Trance. 1979. I’m decidedly not the foremost folk rock fan that you will find. Generally I find it’s too based in tradition for me to hear it for anything other than what it is – folk music. But occasionally a band will break convention, and add a unique twist that really does make it progressive. Ougenweide, Emma Myldenberger ain’t. But nor is EM like Emtidi, Broselmaschine or Hoelderlin either. No, this is gather round the rathskeller music – if the establishment was there in 1342. Haunting, tribal, primal and downright groovy, I like the way “Tour de Trance” keeps driving the beat with hand percussion while the acoustic guitar strums non-stop in the same way that the palm muters do in today’s metal culture. The only other comparison I can make is the 16 minute ‘Groove Inside’ track from Parziva’s “Legend” album. Except this goes pretty much through the whole album. I’ve had this on LP since the early 90s and it’s great to now have the new Garden of Delights reissue, which is as usual, absolutely essential. With photos, histories, great sound and bonus tracks (catching the group in a more typical pub setting), it’s another winner from GoD.

Sicher – s/t. 1981. There was a major boom in private progressive albums from Switzerland in the late 70s and early 80s. Not sure why that’s the case, but here’s another one. Featuring two flute players, and possessing a strong affinity for classical music, Sicher put out a better than average progressive album when compared to many of their peers. Some semblance to Eloiteron. Well worth seeking out for a listen or two.

Popera Cosmic – s/t. 1969. I’ve seen the album listed as “Les Enclaves”, but since I don’t have the LP, I can’t verify. I’ve had this on cassette forever, and totally forgot about it until recently. This is a very early William Sheller effort, and is pretty close to an exploitation album (there’s even a cover of ‘Batman’ for crying out loud!). But it can’t be written off so easily, as there are many experimental, avant garde, and flat out interesting rock segments that are way ahead its time for 1969. Also sung in French which was still unusual for the rock scene in those days. I actually think this would do well in the reissue market – especially with DJs who love to sample vintage sounds.

Alice – Arretez le Monde. 1971. I had totally forgotten about this French release. I had it on LP for a few years and finally decided to move it out. It was a difficult decision, mainly because the gatefold cover is so cool – and the feel of it reminds me of Sandrose’s sole album. That was well over 10 years ago. So hearing this again was fun. And also reminded me why I did ultimately not hold onto it. It’s by no means a bad album, but Alice were a French pop band exploring with orchestrations and other trendy “progressive” ideas. In that way, they remind me of the Italian groups doing similar like Delirium’s “Dolce Acqua” or The New Trolls “Concerto Grosso No. 1″. When Alice are strictly instrumental, they can be highly fascinating, and utilize a multitude of instruments (even mellotron). But they are pop singer songwriters at heart, and those moments are pretty hard to stomach, unless you’re a fan of said style. Would be a great choice for a Japanese mini-LP.

Pantin – Welcome to the Palace. 1977. Now here’s a strange one from France. “The Palace” refers to an old train station. Two side long brooding electronic pieces with piano dominating are what Pantin are about. Very slow moving but does crescendo towards the end making the investment of time worth it. Not sure what the label executives at EMI were thinking here, as this one has no commercial potential. Far too experimental for that. And the cover of an electric guitar has to be one of the most misleading ever. Underground heads take note.