Individual Choice is a very interesting album from Ponty, favoring the synthesizer over his trademark violin. In this way, he seems to be following Richard Pinhas' approach more than his own fusion based efforts. His sound choices are mostly monolithic while heavy on the sequencer. Though more positive in tone, one could make comparisons to Chronolyse, especially when there's bass and drums present. The melodies are well written and provide a nice contrast to the normally cold electronic genre. Always fun to hear future American Idol star Randy Jackson on the bass. He certainly earned his way to being a judge, as he was a very busy session player in the 80s. Only the finale 'In Spite Of All' demonstrates Ponty's fusion tendencies. I'd owned this album many years ago, but dismissed it as ordinary fusion. I missed the boat. Wrong genre and wrong mindset.
Ownership: LP: 1983 Atlantic. Single sleeve. From the free box of records at the last Colorado Springs show (2023).
1993; 4/18/23 (new entry)
No comments:
Post a Comment