Ceddo - s/t (1979 Germany).
Ceddo - Aufhören (1980 Germany).
Ceddo - Step by Step (1983 Germany). Ceddo, on their debut, is very much from the jazz school, but in the same way as Association PC and Electric Circus. Long tracks, and the guitar playing gets pretty wiggy, so a real plus there. The bass plays fretless and has that warm 80’s jazz sound. The drumming is scattered which is nice. Closest comparison would be Dzyan’s “Time Machine” (more jazzy though) or maybe Alpha du Centaure’s album (rhythm section not so strictly straight jazz). “Aufhören” is very similar and continues with a mixture of jazz and rock styles. Band features guitarist Jochen Schrumpf (and in fact the band is later known as Jochen Schrumpf’s Ceddo), who later went onto the reformed 1980’s version of Kollektiv. “Step By Step” begins the journey towards fuzak, with smooth jazz sax, Caribbean steel drums, cocktail-hour Spanish themes and an overall feel of a cruise ship lounge act. Despite all of that, there’s still some fine guitar work. In this way, I’m reminded of Santana’s 1980s output. They also have, incredibly, two more albums. So much output from such an obscure band.
Nadavati - Le Vent de L’Esprit Souffle Il Vent (1978 France). Mike gets the credit for this post, as he mentioned the album to me yesterday, and I scrounged around in the pile until I found it. I think he plans on posting his thoughts here soon as well (hopefully not stealing the thunder here). “Le Vent de L’Esprit Souffle Il Vent” is an interesting jazz rock album, that opens incongruously with a Chicago styled horn rocker (again, Mike’s keen ear clued me in on this). There’s a definite Mahavishnu streak that prevails, especially in the violin and guitar parts. Some nice flute jazz too. They seem to favor unison runs to overlong solos, and that scores points in my book. Nadavati do not offer anything that hadn’t already been done countless times prior, but for what they do, it’s quite competent. A good one that I’m sure many fusion fans would enjoy if it was to be reissued on CD.
Yep, will be posting mine on Saturday, we’ll definitely be in agreement about this one. Your point with the unison lines was something I picked up more on my last listen, a great call. I’d quote Mahvishnu as well, but there’s also a bit of funk to it, which reminds me of some Billy Cobham or Lenny White solo albums from the 70s. And of course Chicago + funk = Tower of Power too, which might even be the band’s most looming influence.