Outer Music Diary

Kostas Tournas - Aperanta Chorafia - Greece 1973

What is intersting about this album is how it effervesces upon repeated listens with the intent of paying attention. In passing it may gloss over as a bit of some sort of conceptual piece being supported by progressive rock. As for what it is actually about, I couldn’t tell you, because it is literally all Greek to me (and you and everyone else, for that matter, lol). Now, there is a building up that happens over and over as the themes undulate over the duration. The playing is precise and specifically unfolding the movements, sometimes within the span of a few bars, even. That being said, this is in no way some herky-jerky schtick… everything is calculated, seemingly down to each cymbal crash. There are pockets of wooly jammage amidst a rolling development. His voice is nice enough and it is one of the important vehicles in this piece; makes me want to understand the words, he has something to say which takes an entire album to unfold upon the listener. There are occasional short small orchestral string sections and horn balustrades as accents on the traditional guitar, hammond organ, drums, and bass rock format. It flows well throughout, and well it should, this is one of the main movers and shakers from Poll (the other main man of which went on to do Akritas, one of the best progressive albums, ever!). I’ll probably be getting that other Kostas Tournas album at some point, another deluxe reissue from the same label that has done marvelous vinyl reissues with all of the bands named herein. “Astronira” is also billed as a yet another classic prog-rock album from Greece.

Aha.. I now note that this deluxe Anazitisi LP reissue also has translated lyrics:
The Endless Fields
“When I was young, I thought of this world to be different than it is [...]
As for you, you smoke your cigarette with pleasure, this is how you have spent an entire life and you think it’s going to change if you compromise…”

Ahh.. an idealistic piece, I can dig it, I think (reading on and signing off..)

Outcome:

Certifiably worth thine time for investigation, recommendation is to spin a few times.. getting into it.

- ~ -

::11/15 - Excellent::

Barney Wilen & His Amazing Free Rock Band - Dear Prof. Leary

The album cover of Dear Prof. Leary uses flashing colors, a green on red design that makes the title of the album wobble in true psychedelic fashion. No matter what one thinks of MPS and jazz rock, this one’s announcing something more in common with the rock scene of the time than jazz music, despite the pedigree of the musicians. Interesting to see French guitarist Mimi Lorenzini on board, readers may recognize him from his late 70s fusion group Edition Speciale or other similar projects. You also get Joachim Kuhn on keys, Aldo Romano and Wolfgang Paap on drums, Gunter Lenz on bass and the leader on saxes. However, the band seems to play as two trios. You have Paap on the left for the beats and Romano on the right for the freer material and often the two diverge for quite a bit of cacaphony.

Musically this starts with a lot of different tunes from the era, both soul (”Why Do You Keep Me Hanging On” and “Respect”) and pop (The Beatles’ “The Fool on the Hill”). If you add a couple originals and Ornette Coleman’s “Lonely Woman,” you’ve got the whole record and despite the different source materials, the album is quite consonant as a whole. Generally the musicians play the themes and then go berserk, time and time again, making it quite a bit different from the same sort of method soul jazzers like Grant Green were using, the vamp and the jam. The whole thing is overlaid by great psychedelic excess, heavy almost Jon Lord-like organ, freaky wah wah guitars by Lorenzini and the warm sax tone you’d expect from a band like Xhol Caravan. The music grooves like some psych beat monster but it always gives a way to bountiful noise and shredding, as if Brotzmann or Braxton was doing a late 60s song book with Booker T and the MGs as backing band.

Overall it’s not really quite what you’d expect. The cover screams the 60s, the line up a great jazz combo, the song line up a mix and the overall approach one of heavy rock. Strangely all these threads converge in a style almost perfect for MPS, American jazz gone European style, deconstructing a lot of familiar tunes until you would barely recognize them. I’ve always considered Kuhn to be a fairly mellow player for the most part, so it’s great to hear him really let loose on the organ here. While the occasional free sax outburst might scare some potential listeners away, be assured that this is far more a rock release than most of what MPS puts out and is likely to appeal as much to the psych/freak out collector than the jazz crowd. It’s a gem well worth rediscovering.