Outer Music Diary

Jet Lag - Delusione Ottica

Occasionally I’ll go off on the modern Italian symphonic rock groups. To me there’s a large difference between the old and new school and one reason contributing to this is the lack of musical training, or perhaps that the early Italian bands were fusing styles, while the new ones are mostly aping them. A lot of the new bands can be pretty sloppy, but Jet Lag fall into the exception to the rule, despite their name being redolent of the era of PFM’s decline. Obviously Jet Lag may have been better off calling themselves the Chocolate Kings or Photos of Ghosts given their obvious connection to the classic era of 70s rock. Fortunately the band is muscular in the extreme, the rhythm section propelling the band through the stop and start jigsaw puzzle of their melodic and intense progrock. In fact I’m wondering why I can’t seem to get this out of the 10s and into the 11s, perhaps it’s just that this style doesn’t hold a lot of surprises anymore (like Divae, I might have given this a 12 had I heard it a decade ago). Kind of curious as to what happened to the group as well.

Sea Level - Cats on the Coast

If the Allman Brothers wanted to sound a little more like Steely Dan, you’d probably come up with Sea Level with only a few minor adjustments. They’re a child of the late 70s and thus they ought to have been taking on some of the more heinous and commercial aspects of the time period. Instead they’re more of a balancing act. I probably don’t know the album well enough to tell you if the songs are the type that stick to the craw, but the jams certainly do and there are some really nice Allmans-ish instrumentals here (and yes there’s a connection although I’ll be damned if I can remember it right now). Anyway, of the three albums, this middle one seems to capture their spirit the best and I have no problem seeing this permanently at a 10.

Jean-Luc Ponty - Upon the Wings of Music

For convenience, I’m going to separate jazz-rock and fusion, jazz-rock being the more primitive and edgier early style (Bitches Brew, Emergency!, first few Weather Reports etc) and the smoother, possibly more mature if maybe a little more sterile later style typified by Return to Forever and a host of their offshoots and clones. With such a forced dichotomy, you’d have to put Ponty in the latter category, but it’s so tempting to want to go with the former just because Ponty’s solo albums have so much fire. Lots of this reminds me of my favorite Zappa video, the one in 73 with Ponty out in front, because he’s just playing so fabulously here, so fluidly, with 100 different chops. Memorable? I’m not so sure, I’m not sure I’ve given the time to say, but nearly every Ponty 70’s fusion album surprises me well more than I might given the style. And nearly every one I’ve given a 10.

Julian Jay Savarin – Waiters on the Dance. 1973. 12=12. Broke down and picked up the Japanese mini-LP of this. It’s one of my favorite British psych prog albums of the era. Raw edged guitar, organ shreds, nimble piano, strings, complex compositions, brassy female vocals, and some great and memorable tunes. ‘Cycle’ is in my Top 10 ever for groovy psych tunes. It had to be recorded earlier – sounds more like 1970 to me. Essential.

White Willow – Storm Season. 2004. D: 10. Doing a bit of catch up here with White Willow, as I also picked up their new one “Signal to Noise”. And I’ll be honest, even though I own “Sacrament”, I don’t recall much from it. “Ignis Faatus” is highly revered around here – and I still think is one of the finest albums from the 90s. “Storm Season” is definitely a modern product, likely to appeal to the larger community. It has an accessible song style, breathy female vocals, occasional metal guitar, lush production. Having trouble finding any distinguishing characteristics, but I think I need to look harder. The listens tend to blow by, but I know it’s good.

P. P. Zahl - Alle Türen Offen. 1978. D: 10. German polit-rock albums are typically a tough minefield to navigate. From the punk angst of Checkpoint Charlie to the theatrical Floh de Cologne to the earnest Ton Steine Scherben and onto the always changing Oktober, all these bands are a challenging listen. The German language is much welcomed, though the meaning is lost on me. P.P. Zahl are closer to the Oktober recipe (and apparently related as well), and that’s a good thing for those who are going more for the music than the lyrical component. Other than the usual rock instruments, a distinctly Spanish acoustic guitar makes numerous appearances. Fellow German language compatriots Novalis seem to also have played an influence, primarily the spacey texture of sound. And Minotaurus comes to mind on the synth bits.  Picked up some counterpoint ala Gentle Giant on Side 2. One of the best for the style.

Wes Montgomery/Wynton Kelly Trio - Smokin’ at the Half Note

At approximately 77 minutes or so, this title (which has something of an interesting history with its release) could be considered slow going, and indeed I felt that way for my first few listens. But in listening to this last night, it really clicked for me, in Gnosis terms the 9 to 11 “click.” There’s something stately and almost hyper-mature about Kelly’s trio, in some ways they’re the classic 50s rhythm section, most notable with Miles Davis. I generally prefer things a little less polished, but Wes balances it out some with his guitar playing. Montgomery’s way of chording and phrasing is a lot of fun to listen to and given that so many of these tracks are quite upbeat and swinging, you get to hear him to some wonderfully tricky stuff. This relatively newly remastered album sounds fantastic and leaves in a lot of the DJ work, which you hear a few times throughout the duration. Anyway it lit me up like a fire, and I’m still finding that the 4th listen is a magic number for me when it comes to hard bop, this one just opened up like a bloom.