Outer Music Diary

John Tchicai and Cadentia Nova Danica - Afrodisiaca

Danish musician John Tchicai is an alto and soprano sax player who has been involved with a number of important out jazzers such as John Coltrane (Ascension), Don Cherry and Archie Shepp and still appears to this day on various projects such as Henry Kaiser’s Yo Miles tributes (he’s also taught music at my local college in Sacramento). After Tchicai’s stint in New York playing with the luminaries of the free jazz scene, he moved back home in the late 60s and formed Candentia Nova Danica with whom he recorded Afrodisiaca with a cast of 25 other musicians.

Unlike many of the recent MPS albums I’ve covered, many of which are jazzrock or at least edgy, electric jazz, Afrodisiaca is somewhere between free jazz and composed material, with the title track a side-long piece written by Hugh Steinmetz, who also plays trumpet. While much of the music is written (apparently in the scale of the African percussion instrument the balafon), the solo spots and general chemistry are very reminiscent of free jazz, with a wide musical palette incorporating dissonant free-jazz inspired solos into the music’s framework.

The result is one of MPS’s most difficult and challenging albums and one that could possibly be described as “third stream” in the manner of combining European classical tradition with American jazz. Where side 1 slowly builds to quite the climax, the second side with compositions (or arrangements) by Tchicai himself open the floodgates entirely. “Heavenly Love on a Planet” could be Tchicai’s ode to Sun Ra, slow percussion sets up solos for both he and William Breuker, wildly free and dissonant, while the slow tempo set up by the percussionists creates quite a bit of tension. Pierre Doerge’s guitar gets a bit of play on “Fodringsmontage” which plays like a collage of Albert Ayler, Sonny Sharrock and Ascension, all of the freedom wrapped up in some beautiful, eerie ensemble work.

The final two pieces are probably the work’s most consonant pieces and I still hear, even through such a European approach, a lot of Americana in the melodic themes, always reminiscent of Albert Ayler to my ears, the way he’d swirl chaos and anger around the familiar. Harry Akst’s “This is Heaven” is almost like a march, slightly mournful and delirious, and surprisingly tuneful. “Lakshmi” seems to follow right on out, before breaking into a growingly accompanied Michael Shou flute solo and disappearing into mystery, with the ensemble floating up strange chords and returning in between Willy Jagert’s ophicleide and Christian Khyl’s soprano-saxophone like a narrator. The finale is quite meditative in the end thanks to these solos, as if the bursts of chaos and return to ensemble themes were returning one slowly to the center.

It’s not a surprise that this is a highly lauded free work, given that the ensemble work acts as the glue that holds together all the abandon and experimentation so well. It’ll sit comfortably if not edgily next to one’s Art Ensemble of Chicago, Brotzmann and early ECM albums as a prime example of a truly syncretic and avant garde work that ran with the multiculturalism of the late 60s and created something new and lasting from it.

Nadavati - L’Esprit Souffle ou il Vent

This is one of those French one-offs I used to see cruising the old Musea discography books, the kind of arcana that made collecting rare progressive music such a joy at the time, even if a good percentage of these bands never made the grade. Nadavati are very much a combination of two major influences, the lion’s share comes from fusion, the smaller but still substantial influence, particularly in the album’s bookends, comes right from old Chicago Transit Authority (I think mostly from the first couple albums). It has the horns, the electric guitar soloing and the Chicago method of amping a songs intensity by changing to a higher key with the full horn section in swing. Surprisingly this influence is only relegated to a song or two, the lion-share of the middle parts are internationally inspired jazz rock, most obviously Mahavishnu Orchestra or mid-period Return to Forever, but also, bridging the two influences, Tower of Power. Here the band creates lots of vamps for plenty of guitar and horn solos and as such does a fine job of it; I also have to also borrow Tom’s previous comment on the unison lines which often act as the backbone to the songs. Obviously the extreme derivation in parts knocks it down a little, but overall this is a nice slice of horn fusion, with a much heavier American influence than most French prog-related rarities.

MOTUS - Machine of the Universal Space

Another bizarre French one off that could be considered similar to something like Concept from Canada or even a more hippy Godley and Creme, a band whose art pop crosses a number of different styles and due to the era occasionally bridging progressive rock. MOTUS, however, are a lot more mainstream than Concept were and throughout there’s a concentration on the sort of post Crosby Stills and Nash pop and folksy rock that you’d find in the Eagles on the most populist side and something like Ophiucus referencing an obscure countrymate. This is likely not to be interesting to anyone except those who collect strange, but quirky records, although at times the band does a remarkable side of aping the song stylings of American bands that has a tendency to make you look up and wonder what you’re listening to. Certainly not a waste of time to stop by and check this one out, but not one you’re likely to return to either.

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.

Zyma - Brave New World (1979 Germany). I first heard Zyma on the “Proton 1″ compilation that was released by Kerston in 1974, which featured five up and coming new German bands. Of those, Zyma and Sun were the only groups to eventually get a full length LP. And with Zyma, they managed two releases, “Thoughts” and “Brave New World”. “Thoughts” was reissued by Garden of Delights a few years back, which allowed me a revisit of that fine album. And now I’m finally returning to hear their followup. Zyma were similar to many of their late 1970s contemporaries, with a strong melodic sense, female vocals, and a slight fusion edge. Groups like Eden, Credemus, Rebekka and Werwolf all come to mind. One significant difference, however, is the use of scat vocals. And she can get quite hysterical at times, which reminded me of early Zao strangely enough. Lots of violin and flute as well. I would expect GoD will eventually reissue this one as well. And it would be worth the effort.

Cos - Babel (1978 Belgium). While Musea has tackled Cos’ first two classic Canterbury inspired albums, as well as their final 1982 “Pasiones” release, they have so far neglected Cos’ “disco era”. For some folks, “Babel” is the pinnacle of their musical achievement. It is a one of a kind album, a mixture of complex Canterbury and Zeuhlish compositions, filtered through the disco mirror ball - fat danceable beats, sweeping strings and Studio 54 debauchery. Closest comparison might be the French group Cortex, though Cos on “Babel” are far more disturbing (in the Univers Zero sense of the term), as well as more disco-ish. And while that doesn’t make any sense, I think that’s its intrinsic value. Not sure if Musea plans on reissuing this one. IIRC, you can pay for a download from the band direct.

ES - Wham Bang (1979 Germany). Now here’s a strange bird. ES is made up of former members of Tomorrow’s Gift and the Release Music Orchestra. On the surface, “Wham Bang” is a straight ahead pop rock / disco album. And after each track’s cringe worthy vocal section finishes, one might expect a short instrumental followed by some more tawdry vocals. Except the instrumentals don’t stop and ES begins to introduce a complex fusion sound, as one might find on an earlier RMO release. Everytime I was about to write “Wham Bang” off as a cheap European knockoff, then wham! bang! I’d hear an impressive instrumental bit. Yes, I think the album may have been a conscious satire on the then current music trends.

Lloyd McNeill Quartet - Asha (1969 USA).
Lloyd McNeill Quartet - Asha 3: Washington Suite (1970 USA). “Asha” is a super jazz flute album, that is very spiritual and psychedelic. I can feel the 1969 Howard University vibe coming through. “Washington Suite”, McNeill’s third, continues in this path. His albums have a subdued intensity, an understated anger that never quite climax, and is mitigated by frequent displays of beautiful melodicism. I suspect that the McNeill albums will be big growers for me over time. I have “Asha 2: Tanner Suite” here as well, but haven’t heard it yet. I should also mention that McNeill has 3 fine albums from 1976 to 1980: Treasures (1976), Tori (1978) and Elegia (1980). And none of them are on CD, which hopefully will be attended to one day.

Tullio de Piscopo Revolt Group - Sotto e ‘ncoppa (1975 Italy).
Tullio de Piscopo - Vol. 2 (1977 Italy). De Piscopo is a well known jazz percussionist (to this day), who ventured into progressive fusion in the mid 1970s. First he played with The New Trolls, then he released these two fusion albums with some excellent Fender Rhodes, sax and guitar action. De Piscopo reminds me most of Toni Esposito’s albums from the same era. “Sotto e ‘ncoppa” features Sante Palumbo who was also on the Sway album mentioned here earlier. “Vol. 2″ is more diverse, mixing in period disco, acoustic folk, tight fusion, and rock versions of traditional Italian sing-a-longs. I felt this was the stronger of the two releases. Neither of these have been reissued on CD, and aren’t even mentioned on Tullio de Piscopo’s own website.

Laurent Petitgirard - s/t (1972 France). One of the more interesting instrumental rock albums from early 1970s France is Pop Instrumental de France, which was a pseudonym for Laurent Petitgirard. This album represents the followup. Perhaps a little less “Le Fun GoGo Pop” and a bit more towards serious jazz rock with classical overtones. For soundtrack fans, Petitgirard is a household name, and he’s still scoring films and concertos all these many years later. While PIdF received a legit reissue on Vadim not long ago, his followup has fallen into the deep chasm. Laurent himself seems to have disowned it, as not a word about it appears on his own website. That’s too bad, because this a lovely set of instrumental tunes, perfect for that spring afternoon drive on a winding two lane trek through the mountains. Perhaps Vadim has their eye on this one as well. Let’s hope so.

Alain Renaud - s/t (1975 France).
Alain Renaud - Out of Time (1976 France). Alain Renaud played on some of the early Heldon albums, and his sound is somewhat similar, especially on the first. Long drifting cosmic pieces of electronics and guitar. Not as menacing or as immediate as Pinhas’ works. I’ve had the first Renaud album since the mid 1980s, so I have a sentimental soft spot for it. “Out of Time” is a completely different affair. Here, Renaud mixes instrumental rock fusion with some vocal oriented tracks (extremely ill advised I must add) that have me coiling in despair. There is one longish electronic piece similar to the debut, that’s quite nice. A reissue of the first, with a couple of bonus tracks taken from the second would be ideal.

Jean Le Fennec - Phantastic (1969 France). Le fun Go-Go psych pop, no? Oui! (mademoiselle giggle, giggle). Le Fennec’s sole album is a bit more hokey and exploito than others of his ilk, most notably William Sheller’s Popera Cosmic. It is also very vocal heavy and since it’s all in French (fortunately), perhaps some of the work is lost in translation, though somehow I doubt it. Other than some wonderfully placed fuzz guitar, in that phantastic French tradition of super compression, there’s not much to hold onto here. Musicologists and the Incredibly Strange crowd may disagree. Never been reissued on CD.

Spacious Mind - Live Volume One:  Do Your Thing But Don’t Touch Ours

One positive for the improvisationally minded space-rock/psych group is after a decade in the business, you’re going to likely have a good stock of live recordings and it shouldn’t be too difficult to start releasing some of the gems. Here the Spacious Mind have done that for their own audience in limited quantities, and it’s certainly a worthy first entry, marking this a series worth keeping an eye on. There aren’t any major secrets here, this is a genre that got started with Pink Floyd in the late 60s and while the technology has changed, the focus on mantric and psychedelic jams hasn’t. However, now that this band has been around for a while, I’m starting to see that divergence from the center that you’d hope for. The band does it by fragmenting parts of their sound and really concentrating on excellent textures, rather than concentrating on power or histrionics. It’s a similar path to the one Escapade took except Spacious Mind still seem a bit old school and analog.

Spirit - Spirit of ‘76

I’m like nearly everyone else in finding the first four Spirit albums the central part of the band’s canon, but even with the personnel changes, it didn’t make the band something not to watch for the remainder of the 70s as this double album so perfectly demonstrates. Or should I say bands? Randy California left Spirit in the early 70s and went on to record Kapt Kopter, which could be considered something of a template for the Spirit he picked up with to record this album, drummer Ed Cassidy partnering with him for a new version. Like Kapt Kopter, this album has a lot of reconstructed covers and while they don’t go to Residents-like lengths to make them different, there’s no question this is California and Co. even through “The Times They Are A-Changing,” “Like A Rolling Stone,” the Stones’ “Happy,” “Hey Joe” and more. The band’s original music, written by the partners, fits in perfectly, and it turns out to be something of a post-Beatles art/pop thing, like California’s solo work, all of it echoing the original music on albums like Sardonicus. It’s definitely a surreal, psychedelic, yet very American work that still deserves attention almost as much as the original music.

Keep - Live

Keep’s a hard jazz rock band to get a consonant view on, given their two studio albums and this live release as they seem to change style from one to the other, and I suppose that could be due to personnel changes invisible to me. I’ve always really liked the second album, because it works nicely as an analog to the Kenso albums, however, this Live album is more what you’d think of as standard fusion, more in the virtuoso realms of Tribal Tech and like. So while I didn’t warm to it right away, over time I’ve found it to improve distinctively from the others to make it my second favorite work of theirs. In getting used to the music, I still detect a little of the more progrock vibe from the second in the compositions even if it is subsumed to the new style a bit.

Virgin’s Dream - Sophisty (1980 Germany). A couple of years ago, I received a package from Rolf Trenkler, former leader of Virgin’s Dream. It contained a CD compiled from unreleased demos called “The X-Tapes” and dated primarily from 1972 (and I reviewed it for Gnosis). But there was no mention of this “Sophisty” album (maybe because he wasn’t on it)! In fact, I see no similar members between the 2 albums. A similar thing happened with the band Moira, and yet there was a tie-in, just not on album. So this certainly could be the same band. The Krautrock Musikzirkus website lists them together, as a band from Essen. But the history provided is strictly from “The X-Tapes” era. In any case, I never knew of its existence until a good friend recently provided me with a CDR burn. Virgin’s Dream, on “Sophisty” at least, are very much a product of the late 70s and early 80s German fusion scene. Perhaps a bit more tropical, and funky, than most. Comparisons to Michael Borner’s Sun or some of Syncrises’ work wouldn’t be out of line. As usual, the guitar work is exemplary, a trademark of the time and place. No CD exists.

Key - s/t (1977 Germany). Key are yet another fusion band from Germany from the late 1970s scene. Though I’d say Key definitely are on the jazz side of the equation. Featuring long sections for trumpet and sax solos, not to mention the piano and standup bass providing the backdrop and atmosphere. A pleasant enough album, though I find it hard to believe this would motivate too many potential buyers in the CD reissue market, and indeed it remains unissued. Drummer Kurt Bilker went on to play the kit on Katamaran’s “Footprints”.

Deja Vu - Cosmic Zack (1977 Germany). I recently revisited this album for the first time in 7 years. My last listen prompted me to write the following review for Gnosis, and my viewpoint hasn’t changed one bit. “A very obscure release from Germany circa 1977. Typical of many private releases from late 70’s Deutschland, Deja Vu attempt the Novalis style of progressive rock. The primary instrument is electric guitar and is accompanied by electric piano, sax, flute, bass and drums. There are also vocals with a traditional heavy Teutonic accent (some in English, some in German). I often wonder why these bands bothered with the vocals as it only detracts from the compositions. Fortunately, side two eschews the vocals for a more energetic instrumental approach. Musically, the band plays a safe, straightforward and somewhat jazzy (especially side 2) progressive music with some well done guitar/sax work amongst the otherwise mediocre compositions. File along with Credemus, Poseidon, Eden and a host of other well-meaning, but ultimately lacking, German bands from the late 70’s/early 80’s.” Still hasn’t been reissued on CD.