2022 Fusion / Jazz Journal Vol. 2 - Complete

*Carpenters - Close to You. 1970 A&M (LP). Pulled this out of What's Left for $1 (Dec). I see this album all the time in the thrifts, but usually not in the best condition. I had a copy prior that I gave to a friend. Anyway I get all weepy with this title. 'We've Just Begun' just slays me every time, hitting on some core nerve of innocence from my 5 year old self. And it's never been fair (at all) to pair up Bacharach and these two siblings. Sentimentality overload! Has anyone ever listened to that last Richard Carpenter piece 'Another Song'? What the hell? Sounds like Krautrock, and Karen is bashing the drums like Klaus Schulze's sister, not Richard's. What did Nixon say? "Finest young group in America is going to entertain us tonight. The Carpenters ladies and gentlemen." Wow. Bet they didn't play 'Another Song'... Crate digger tip: The white label promo version of this album goes for big bucks. Since I learned that little tidbit, I've inspected the label from scores of copies, but never have yet seen one. It is indeed scarce.

Pharoah Sanders - Love Will Find A Way. 1978 Arista (LP). Thrift shop find (Dec). You're not going to find too many people who say this is the Sanders album to buy. Though one could argue it's his most accessible work. Smooth jazz and disco are not the qualities Sanders brings to the table. It starts off pretty nice actually but the material runs thin after awhile. And it gets almost irritating by the end. The general populace ranks this as his low point. 

Junior Vega - Images of Music. 19?? Variety (LP). Interesting recent thrift shop find (Dec). Trumpeter Vega plays a compendium of Latin jazz styles including Samba, Bossa Nova, Mambo, Bomba, and Guajira. Mambo is about 40% but I'll be damned if I could tell you much of a difference between them. Blindfolded I doubt I could identify even the Bossa Nova track, a genre I've become very familiar with in the last 3-4 years. He's backed up by no less than 11 musicians. This one is a borderline keeper, as it has a very satisfying sound.

Oriental Wind - Live in der Balver Hohle. 1978 JG (LP). Collection revisit (Sep). Back in 2001 I was taking chances on ebay for any interesting looking jazz rock records, mostly European. This was long before the CDRWL, YouTube, and other outlets provided to me. If I saw something at a good price, that appeared like I would enjoy it, I would pop for it. Oriental Wind was somewhat typical of the style of albums I was buying. This is a very fine world fusion effort, with spirited Turkish drummer Okay Temiz leading the Swedish quintet through a serious of extended workouts. Musically I'm reminded of Embryo's later jazz efforts (many years after this) and some of Aera's work, in particular the saxophone playing. All in all, falls a bit too much into the jazz playing field for me to grab ahold on, though my rating remains the same (very good). 21 years on from that first listen and I don't think this one will make the cut, even though there are no reissues. Bar keeps getting higher.

Krzysztof Zgraja - Laokoon. 1981 Polskie Nagrania (LP). Collection revisit (Sep). Same as the above, purchased near the same time for the same reason. And like Oriental Wind, my rating remains unchanged, but this isn't really much in my wheelhouse. Laokoon is hardcore flute jazz, well done for the style, and certainly isn't pop influenced fluff. But it's not avant garde either. This title, however, did manage to get reissued in 2018. So if I change my mind at least a copy can be attainable. 

Anna Margarida - Anna. 1968 Vault (LP). Recent thrift shop find (Sep). Since I restarted my crate digging activities in 2019, two types of music emerged as new styles of choice for me: funk - especially jazz funk - and bossa nova. Ms. Margarida is of the latter. From Brazil, naturally enough, this is her primary album. It's very soothing and well done. However it's a bit too orchestrated and syrupy for me to want to go extra rounds with it. So it falls short of the Sergio Mendes bar. Not enough tequila in this Margarida (just had to write that didn't I?). 

Chakachas - Jungle Fever. 1972 Polydor (LP). This ended up being a disappointment. I had a rare single by these Belgian guys (captured here on UMR) and thought a full album would be pretty cool. I expected Latin Funk or even some Latin Rock. What you get is Latin Jazz. Pretty much the same kind of music Rene Bloch was doing a decade prior. Nothing wrong with that of course, just not what I'm looking for. Closing title track is by far the best thing here. Oh well, can't win 'em all. (Sep)

*Rafael Moreira - Acid Guitar. 2005 Music Magnet (CD). Thrift shop find (Apr). With a title like that, there was no way I'm leaving it behind. I have no idea who Moreira is, but this is one superb album. Acid Guitar is not exactly what I expected though. In fact I was afraid it would be one of those nauseous guitar feedback overload albums like we hear coming from Japan. It's nothing of the sort - rather it has a bit of funk and Bossa Nova mixed in. The latter an homage to Moreira's native Brazil. There are some sublime psychedelic guitar moments as well as hard rock. A wonderful surprise on what appears to be a mostly unknown CD. A CD I might add that is a private pressing that comes in a first class 6 panel digipak.

* - Keeping for the collection

Mike's Top 30 Unreissued Titles (Part 3 of 6)

11. Tortilla Flat - Fur ein 3/4 Stundchen (Reissued by Long Hair 2019) 

Tom reviewed these on his Reissue Wish List site and I'd have to agree that if they had been previously released, I'd have the SWF Tortilla Flat sessions very high on the list, perhaps in the top 5 even, they were truly that amazing and decimate most of the stuff that's come out on Long Hair. In many ways, actually, they kind of dovetail nicely with Kollektiv's own sessions and place the band in a much jazzier context than a lot of other German bands of the era, more Embryo, Eiliff or Etcetera than Kosmische or Krautrock per se. But I'm not forgetting the one very rare official Tortilla Flat studio album which is also a mighty fine piece of work, carrying over slight Canterbury influences to go with the German jazzrock sound of the time. And I think to some extent this illustrates one of the difficulties of getting some things released, a lack of inertia or kinetic movement, to get musicians who left work like this behind 25 years in the past to have the same enthusiasm over it as collectors who recently discover it. For me this is a hot potato for sure.

12. Peter Frohmader - Orakel/Tiefe

I could be virtually alone in this category but I find that the strongest music in the old Frohmader catalog was a series of three cassettes in the 80s, two of which, including Orakel/Tiefe were released by Auricle, a cassette label that may be holding back on a lot of the best unreissued stuff, in part because I believe they do CD-Rs of some of this material, but also because these probably appeal to very small audiences. But you could kind of cross classify a lot of Frohmader, there's the very early Nekropolis work, some archives that have come out since that cover a rockier period, and then the more composed work that followed on the heels of the Nekropolis material, and then these cassettes which hint but don't sound anything like the far more electronic duo of CDs that came out on Cuneiform a bit later. Undoubtedly these were a major coup for Auricle. These take that deep cyclopean, Cthulhoid early work into strange cavernous and experimental territories that I've always been surprised at when I go back to. Rarely did Frohmader sound this BIG.

13. Oriental Wind / Okay Temiz

I've flipped and flopped on whether I find this or the later Bazaar the best of the Oriental Wind studio albums, but there's something terribly immediate about the debut that's winning over as I write this. Like all of their material, this is all about the fusion of Turkish folk melody with Coltrane Spiritual jazz and here as on many of the later works there's a fine collision between the two styles, although it's essentially jazz when you think of the melodic structure setting up instrumental solos and then vamping back again. But this is a hot one indeed and maybe the best place to start on a reissue series.

14. Polyphony - Without Introduction (Reissued Gear Fab 2011) 

Polyphony was shrouded in mystery, I remember hearing about an unreleased two side-long track album that was recorded in 1967, then later it was 69 and later than that some time in the early 70s and by that time I was pretty convinced it had taken on something of the mythical at that point. Because this is a very early and distinctly progressive American album, that instead of having the usual Genesis and Yes influences, dipped back more towards keyboard bands like the Nice and Procol Harum while mixing it all up with the prevailing hippy schematic in the vein of Hair the musical soundtrack. The bootleg CD (or at least one) was a massive disappointment, with skipping errors built into the masters which meant even the improper release was that much more so. I think of this as a really important release for American progressive rock, but the word is this is among the more unlikely to be reissued titles out there, which is a crying shame. (ED: This title was reissued later by Gear Fab and Belle Antique)

15. The Fourth Way - Werwolf (Reissued by Harvest Japan 2011)

The best of the three albums by post John Handy musician and crew, the sort of singular jazz rock that didn't follow much of the same pattern many of its contemporaries did, with a more sinuous approach to playing that was still slightly reminiscent of the SF jazz scene of the late 60s but having moved on to what was a more distinct and individual style by the time they got to Werwolf. Considered something of a kozmigroov classic, perhaps a stretch given its progressive credentials, it's certainly a fine release no matter where you classify it, with great playing and the oncoming electric fuzz of the era. A CD of this one is long overdue.

Mike's Top 30 Unreissued Titles (Part 2 of 6)

6. Satin Whale - Desert Places (Reissued by Made in Germany 2023)

If you can get $75 for a Germanofon bootleg of this album on e-bay, it's telling you the very important fact that this is a title that is way overdue for legit reissue. The German rock group's debut is their finest work, perhaps done in the style that Tomorrow's Gift, Frumpy and a few others worked with a bit earlier, an early 70s bluesy rock starting to merge in a more melodic direction with the instrumental vocabulary of the time period. Lots of keys, great guitar work, juxtapositions between good songwriting and energetic instrumental outbreaks. If Samtvogel may have been the German album I'd like to see most reissued, I'd say this one would go over a lot better. I wish SPV would get off the kick of reissuing the Agitation Free and Amon Duul II albums for the nth time and get to albums like this that actually need it. So perhaps this would head the list of unreissued albums I'm most impatient for.

7. Friends s/t

John Abercrombie and co taking some time off a number of various American jazz rock expressions and looking across the Atlantic to bands like Soft Machine and Matching Mole for their next inspiration. Take all instruments, fuzz them out to crackling a la Tony Williams Lifetime (or Joe Zawinul and Tim Belbe circa early 70s) and rip maniacally through comps and improvs like noone seems to do anymore. It's perhaps Exhibit A for the fact that the rare difference between prog rock and jazz rock in the early 70s was the amount of effects being used. It might be said the chops and talent level of the musicians travelling the jazz scenes of the early 70s starting with all of Miles Davis bands and their offshoots were about the most musically adept in the world, so it's kind of enlightening to see them take on a distinctly European expression and run with it. I mean hell if we can get Horacee Arnold reissues and Stark Reality on CD, why not this one? A barnburner for sure.

8. Eider Stellaire s/t (Reissued by Soleil Zeuhl 2011) 

Everyone's favorite unreissued Magma clone band and it probably should be noted that Michael Le Bars was actually in the Magma band for what was it a week or a couple months or something. The big rumor is the guy went religious and looks back on his heathen years with some measure of distaste (one has visions of the Magma eagle mandala growing a devil tail and wielding a trident) vowing never to allow his canon to be reissued, thus relegating this debut to permanent bootleg status. Anyway Eider Stellaire sounds like Magma with the Coltrane and jazz influences left as the inspiration's inspiration, streamlining the Zeuhl sound down into something obviously second generation. It's kind of weird in a way because it doesn't go bezerk with energy like Japanese descendants Koenji Hyakkei and Ruins, doesn't go for the French interpretaion a la Eskaton, or bring the Orff or Wagner side more to the front like Weirdorje, nor even pay attention to the Coltrane swing nearly everyone removed from the Magma equation, nor does it even seem to act as a tribute. More like it strips down the vocabularly into syllables and reconstructs the sound as a jazz rock act without recourse to a larger language. What does remain is the heavy bass, urgent forward moving rhythms and the sort of quartet-based writing style. Further albums by the band stripped the sound down more until by 3 they were truly a more typical jazz rock act, but by then the move to a more digital sound stripped the music of any internal coherency and the fact that all three albums are so short is probably tribute to the idea that there's an unfinished feel about all their music. That also means, however, that a CD of the first filled up with the salient points from 2 and 3 would all suffice, provided the master tapes weren't summarily burned in some kind of fundamentalist frenzy. It would be nice to think those rumors are false. But let me say that this album will NEVER be reissued in the way that when you say NEVER that strongly someone always wants to prove you wrong.

9. Volker Kriegel - Lift (Reissued by MPS 2011)

At least in the case of MPS we've seen attempts at cracking the label's large catalog come more to fruition of late, a rather beautiful set of mini LPs coming from Germany, a smattering of great titles from Dave Pike Set and Mike Nock Underground sneaking out of Japan and the George Duke reissues getting enough attention even Verve in the US had a go at them. A long time ago Kriegel's Inside: Missing Link was reissued only to fall well out of print and then a few years back Spectrum got a nice 24 bit treatment in one MPS false-start reissue ranges, yet in the latest wave we've not seen further and certainly Kriegel's got another few albums worth of reissue including what's arguably his best title, the jazz rock classic Lift, which is perhaps his most Mahavishnu-inspired released, which means it's just got a little bit more energy than some of his other solos. Of course the draw is all down to Kriegel's playing which is edgy, slightly angular and one of a kind and far more interesting in 74 than Mahavishnu was that year.

10. Oriental Wind - Live in der Balver Hohle

Despite fleeting rumors that Oriental Wind albums have been released on CD in Turkey, I've seen nothing to see that this is true and in fact I think Life Road's the only one I can think of that was or that at least remains possible to pick up at this point. Which is too bad because it's the early catalog that remains of real interest. Drummer Okay Temiz, erstwhile Don Cherry cohort, travelled Europe gathering musicians to play what was basically a hybrid of Coltrane post-hard bop and Turkish traditional music. Even I probably swing on which one of the first five albums was the best of the group at any given moment, but my memory invariably swings to this live album at a place Finnish folk/jazz fusionists Piirpauke also recorded an album at (and who Temiz later joined). Snakey eastern melodies marry to a pre-kozmigroov spiritualist interpretation of jazz, with the specter of two Coltrane bands ever present, the classic quartet of the mid 60s and the earlier quintet with Dolphy in the line up. Similar in ways to Hermeto Pascoal's vision where compositional work in a unique style set up long sections of American-inspired jazz improvisation where any number of musicians would vamp and succeed or fail depending on the energy level (and far often the former). Overall Wind recorded a good night here and if the live album isn't necessarily the band's best album it's certainly the most spontaneous and, dare I say it, pure jazz. So let's hope (in the case of some of these albums) that someone gets the key to the Sonet label and unravels it like MPS.