Aquarelle - Live a Montreux. 1979 Canada

For their second album, Aquarelle took the unusual step - at such an early stage of the band's career - of releasing a live album. Even though it is a live recording, most of the material is entirely original with the exception of the closer. Throughout this engagement, the composition style is similar to Sous un Arbre, except there are obvious ploys to appease the jazz crowd, perhaps to be expected at such a famous jazz festival. For example there’s the inclusion of electric piano, more soloing (especially saxophone), the addition of some funk (which was popular then), less female voice, and the electric bass playing has more of that "warm" jazz sound as opposed to the more direct rock approach of the debut. All of these are slight distractions from the special sound of the first album, and thus rates slightly less, but scores a little better with traditional fusion fans.

The newly penned tracks 'Second Réveil', 'Récital des Grenouilles', and 'L'Étranger' are all excellent and would have been fine additions to their prior effort. The only disappointment is 'Estérel', where 'Part I' is a snoozer of a chamber-like piece and 'Part II' is really annoying, where the sax honks and the new female vocalist caterwauls her way through it. This leads to the raucous closer, the 9 minute extended version of the riveting 'Magie des Sons' from the debut. One of Aquarelle's best tracks, the extra time is padded with an incredible piano concerto from bandleader Pierre Lescaut (my, what a talent!) as well as a bit of a drum/violin hoedown. Pierre Bournaki is clearly the other great talent in the band. The crowd really seemed to love it as well.

As noted above, the album scores a notch below the studio effort, but is still not be missed by fans of crossover jazz fusion and progressive rock.

Personal collection
LP: 1979 Atlantic

There does exist a CD on Belle Antique from Japan. The source was provided by the band. I didn't hear this CD, but if their version of Sous un Arbre is any indication of the quality, I'll pass. Both of these really need to be reissued properly.