JAZZ ROCK/FUSION

QUASAR were a trio out of Brisbane, Australia who managed to release two studio albums before calling it a day. I haven't heard their 1979 debut called "Nebular Trajectory", but I did find a copy of "Man Coda" from 1981. They play experimental jazz music, in fact the note in the liner notes is from Brian Brown, who was an Australian jazz tenor and soprano sax player, flautist, composer and band leader. He formed his first group in 1956, which quickly became prominent in Australian experimental jazz.

So he clearly is impressed by what this trio composed here, and they no doubt were influenced by this older talented musician. And yes these are composed tracks. They come across as improvs. Most of which takes it's time. I remember saying that the band must have patience to play this kind of music, but what about the listener? This was love at first listen for me. Four long pieces over 39 plus minutes. And no, this certainly isn't for everyone, hence the low ratings here. The trio is bass/drums(brothers) and guitar. This was recorded at Conservatorium Studios in Brisbane, and pressed by Colombia/EMI. Both the guitarist and bassist add effects.

"Reality's Way" gets us started at 9 1/2 minutes and composed in 1980, and the only track where all three musicians had a hand in the composition. This reminds me of Miles Davis at times. Just how it trips along with guitar expressions over top. The bass sounds interesting after 8 minutes. This is like a drugged-out "Bitches Brew". "Zeitgeist" is also around 9 1/2 minutes and this one reminds me of KING CRIMSON, more Fripp I suppose, with those guitar leads. This one has some life and was composed in 1976.

"The Little Prince" is the shortest at 5 1/2 minutes, and is somewhat catchy but subdued at the same time. "Man Coda" ends it, and at 14 1/2 minutes this is a ride. No, not a very adventerous ride, but I like the trip. I'll just describe the start which is spacey with clashing cymbals and effects before a calm with sinister bass lines arrives, along with distant percussion, as the guitar cries out from time to time. I like how one reviewer calls this album a pure acid trip into the subconscious.

This is a keeper in my music world. Patience is the key, plus having that psychedelic mind. And it's on my best of list from 1981 as a result.

The debut album from Cracow's leading Jazz-Rock Fusion band.

1. "Narodziny" (10:05) beautiful, lush keys, bass, and cymbal play open this almost like a NOVA Vimana song. Soprano sax joins in to lead us down the country garden path. At the two-minute mark the band reshapes the Deodato-like electric piano lushness into something that sounds more like Klaus Doldinger's PASSPORT. I am in love with the mutually-respectful spaciousness of each individual musician's play: it's as if everyone is so in-tune with the others that they are all playing this game of turn-taking. While I am impressed and enjoying each and every band member's skill and prowess on their respective instruments (as well as the engineering choices to put the bass and electric piano far forward and the drums, sax, and electric guitar [mostly] back) I find myself really attracted to the Elio D'Anna-like melodic choices (and sounds) of Andrzej Olejniczak on his soprano sax (which is very odd as I'm usually quite nauseated by the sound and play of saxophones). (19/20)

2. "Taniec Maryny" (3:30) two bouncy electric piano chords open this one, repeated until guitar, bass, and drums join in after about ten seconds. The production is very warm and inviting while the style is jazzy over a "Smooth Jazz" rock 'n' roll two chord vamp with regular deviations into a bar or two of "chorus" chords. The melodies are often shared, presented by the guitar, sax, and Władysław Sedecki right hand. It's simple and mathematical--like an étude--and yet offered with admirable precision and clarity. (8.875/10)

3. "Bez Powrotu" (2:40) this one is much more aligned with traditional jazz stylings: walking bass, nuanced syncopated drum play, whole-group presentations of melodies in harmonic weaves with electric piano chords bridging the middle ground. (8.75/10)

4. "Podróż w Góry" (3:50) very quiet and delicate electric guitar with rich electric piano support opens this one for the first minute before the guitar, sax, and synthesizer jump out front with a very high-speed motif which gattling gun bass and frenzied drums try to keep up with. The overall sound is quite modern--like the music to an early video game or pinball machine. Impressively disciplined synchrony from the lead instruments with the poor capture of the drum sound making it sound as if Benedykt is having trouble keeping up. (8.875/10)

5. "Siódemka" (6:55) more impressive machine gun whole-group spitting and spraying of harmonically-composed melodies over another rhythm track that sounds and feels very much like the uptempo hard bop jazz of late 1960s. The musicians are each quite impressive with their skill and dexterity, and the melodies are quite clear and, I'm sure, impressive from a jazz and classical music perspective, but this is exactly the kind of pre-fusion jazz that I find myself unable to follow, understand, much less enjoy. The Bob James-like electric piano and jazz guitar solos in the third and fourth minutes, respectively are my favorite part of the song after the impenetrable music of the first two minutes. Then, at 4:31, a fast-tempo Mahavishnu-like motif ensues that is much more funky, spaced and broken up, with short burst solos that are much more accessible and digestible to my puny little brain. This part I love, so I'll not let the first two-and-half minutes spoil what turns out to be quite a great song. (13.625/15)

6. "Szczęśliwy Nieszczęśliwiec" (4:05) built over a very comforting rhythm and harmonically-rich jazz-rock base with more humanely-paced bass, drums, and melodically-sensible this one My favorite song on the album because it is both beautiful but also cuz it allows my the time and space to get inside (and feel comforted by) the music. My favorite song on the album. (9.25/10)

7. "Blues For Everybody" (5:45) piano and jazz guitar open this one with some truly blues-based music as the two dance around and within each other's melodies and chords. The one-minute intro is awesome and then the two lock into a more uptempo and more structured blues motif so that they can each solo off of one another. The two musicians sound very mature, relaxed, and confident--as if they're really enjoying playing off one another. A master class in two-person blues-based jazz very much akin to the stuff Scott Joplin and Django and Stéphane Grappelli did together. (9/10)

8. "Hengalo, Almelo, Deventer" (3:20) what a weird sound the engineer-production team have given to the drums! And they've pretty much isolated the bass from everybody else in the mix as well. As a matter of fact, all of the instruments sound and feel boxed/cordoned off from one another--as if they were each in their own little sound room while the recording was going on. Weird! Makes me wonder if this was a preview of modern music in which the musicians do not even play along side one another, recording their "parts" for their own separate tracks, in the studio while the rest of the band is not even present--all from charts! The musicianship is impressive, as usual, but the overall effect of such separation in the final mix makes me feel as if this is just a presentation of someone's composition as rendered by hired studio musicians--compiled over, perhaps, weeks or months! Me no like! (8.75/10)

A lot of this album feels like a lot of jazz to me: harmonically and confusing, overwhelming, and coming from extremely-highly skilled musicians whose brains live and work in an universe that is totally foreign to me. Obviously, bandleader-guitarist Jarosław Śmietana and his keyboard counterpart Władysław Sedecki have a very special relationship--one that is founded much more in the esoteric domains inhabited by the great jazz musicians--but their impressive play does not always translate into enjoyable music for me.

Total time: 40:10

A-/five stars; a minor masterpiece of diverse, highly-skilled, but-more jazz-oriented jazz-rock fusion. Because of its borderline rating score and slightly "out of the box" (rather eccentric) relationship to the more stereotypic sound and styles of progressive rock music, I'm going to only give this four stars; it is not a masterpiece of what I would call progressive rock music but more of a minor masterpiece of electrified jazz and jazz-rock.

Hailing from the Netherlands, the jazz-prog band, Spin, released their self-titled debut in 1976.

The instrumentation in this album is excellent, and there are no tracks on this album that feel like filler or are mediocre or less. One thing that I enjoy about this album are how the instruments blend together to create smooth, rhythmic and complex tracks radiating of summer energy and relaxing tones.

Specifically, I enjoy the bass in certain tracks, like Spinning and Flat Tyre. The bass in this album is funky and fits effectively with the composition of these tracks. The guitar work and drumming is excellent as well and they flow together to fit the mood of certain tracks, especially in energetic tracks like "Excenter"or slower tracks like "Sea and Seasons".

Also, Grasshopper is a strong opener to the album, with gratifying keyboards, jazz elements, and drums blending together to create an interesting, detailed song. The most notable track on here would be the previously mentioned track, Spinning. The mood of this track is undeniably pleasant and laid-back, with a repeated, smooth drum beat, funky bass lines, and warm, lush guitar tones.

Although there are some tracks that aren't as interesting or memorable as others, those inferior tracks still contain smooth instrumentation that is enjoyable. 3.5

Beauty with tension, dissonance, and contrast

Most RPI and jazz fusion fans will remember Italy's Dedalus for their acclaimed 1973 self-titled debut featuring the people with "clock faces" on the cover. They would record some lesser-acclaimed works before a return in 2004 by the slightly altered moniker of Bonansone Dedalus, perhaps letting us know that the vision of the group was now that of multi-instrumentalist Fiorenzo Bonansone first and foremost, while still maintaining the fiercely independent and experimental nature of the Dedalus name. Here, Bonansone is joined by percussionist Michele Kathak Strecchi, flutist Anita Cravero, and Riccardo Chiriotto on bass and brass.

Those who have heard and enjoyed that 1973 Dedalus album may be stunned by what they hear on Nomos Apache Alpha. While I am not knowledgeable about classical music at all, what I hear is a seemingly dry (at first), minimalist, avant-garde chamber music that recalls the more challenging albums of Opus Avantra, namely Strata and Lyrics. I even hear parts of Oregon's Violin album and, to a lesser extent, Gatto Marte which is a bit more conventional and often whimsical. This rarely whimsical music takes classical into modern chamber territory with tension-inducing rhythmic infusion on strings. It is mostly instrumental (strings, keys, flute, brass), but is occasionally grounded by the presence of vocals.

The tension hits you in the face immediately upon pushing play with the first song, the title track. There is no chance to ease into it. In other tracks, the tension is broken by beautiful piano runs and delicate flute. The bass and drums occasionally drive the proceedings in the direction of something more upbeat, but it never veers into rock music, though they will show a bit of playfulness from time to time. I noted contrast specifically because even though it is minimalist, it feels complex. Even though there is beauty and joy, there is disharmony and somberness. The overriding mood feels like clouds gathering, though at times the sunlight breaks through into a sun shower, a unique and memorable event when it pops up in life.

Nomos Apache Alpha is another example of the distinction between progressive music and progressive rock. While I called it dry "at first," I can acknowledge that some warmth and fruitiness does seep in after a few plays. Still, I think it is safe to say that this is a very challenging, cerebral, and serious work that will be a tall order for many rock fans. This album received an appropriately classy mini-lp sleeve CD release on BTF/Vinyl Magic, and that would be a super nice catch for anyone who appreciates modern classical or contemporary progressive music or even avant-RPI stuff. The mysterious and lovely cover photograph was captured by Bonansone himself, but I'm not sure what the location is.

The ongoing relationship between the Genesis maestro and prolific Hungarian legends Djabe continues, seemingly a prefect partnership musically, as well as Steve's obvious personal love for Hungarian culture. Combining modern jazz sensibilities within expansive musical channels that wander way beyond the mundane is in itself a major accomplishment, but when interfaced with Steve Hackett's magical guitar, the creative flower blooms like a paradise garden. With Tamàs Barabàs leaning on his florescent bass guitar, in unison with the syncopation marshalled by Peter Kaszàs , the keyboards can now run rampant, and Zoltàn Bubenyàk does so with shimmering class, while Aron Koos-Hutàs adds flugelhorn and trumpet to the arrangements, as well as taking center stage when called upon. Attila Égerhàzi maintains his compositional guidance and having Hackett's incredible tone as a cavalry charge must be quite the experience. The Hungarians surely enjoy performing all the classic Genesis and Steve's solo material just as much as Hackett seems having a blast playing the Magyar material. What we call a perfect partnership with zero downside, only mutual respect and constant enjoyment in each others company. The music is always a challenge to describe, a hybrid jazz, rock, African and Hungarian folk, at times ambient, meditative and progressive as well.

"In the Silence " opens the curtain on a cinematographic groove, where cool synthesizer plateaus, freezing bass fjords, and wind-blown guitar gales , together revealing an arctic feel. The Barabàs bass is particularly chatty, the pure crystalline piano notes evoking snowflakes melting on warm cheeks, the flugelhorn blaring gently like whales in the distant ocean. The jazzy guitar phrasings are masterfully restrained by Attila, letting Steve do his thing later on, where golden streaks of sunshiny bliss overtakes the arrangement, a sassy trumpet maintaining the tempo. The bouncy "Freya" evokes the Norse myth of a goddess that can master love, beauty, fertility, war, magic and death. Not sure modern women would be able or willing to take on that many tasks but who knows, with all the superwomen around ? With hushed vocals, this piece aims for a more laid-back, accessible romp, with Hackett shooting off a few bursts from his trusted electric guitar. Things revert to the sonic imagery that makes up the bulk of this 'arctic jam', a subdued trumpet recalling the very distant past, as "Stone Age Tea" should be a reference to the bubbling brew emanating from both Aron's wind instruments, Peter's primitive percussives and the slithering lead guitar slicing though the floating leaves. The finale is quite the blowout! A warning that precedes the incredible next four tracks that take this to an entirely other level.

Ambient jazz is where we can hear the "Whispers of The Woods", a polyrhythmic travelogue with thrilling drum parts that show off incredible dexterity and feeling, a strong piano in tow and a sudden frolicking transition into a lighter realm, almost playfully so. This is the ideal moment for Attila and Steve to exchange fretboard phrasings, each easily identifiable and both brilliantly interlaced, a definite moody and atmospheric highlight on this album. Hackett gets to indulge himself in a performance that exhibits his creative soloing as opposed to being a bandleader, a consummate master in full control of his muse, and a timeless adventure for us in the audience. At times, I even thought I was listening to Al DiMeola, another jazz-rock icon that can really dazzle. This stunning piece has all the ingredients for perpetual fame, a modern jazz classic, if there ever was one.

Reflective, ponderous and romantic, the 9 minute + "Sliding Trees" keeps the inventive side in full flight, a serene modulation with Hackett's harmonica causing the most initial damage, a rubbery fretless bass foray for the ages shaking off the branches and the shivering electric guitar somersaulting into celestial overtones, in almost Santana-esque caravanserai fashion, the sensual trumpet caressing the senses, the tactile piano rippling gently over the skin, utterly relaxing and yet evocative of some internal voyaging. Hackett's second solo reaffirms the Carlos feel, repeated by a slick synthesizer flurry that boldly assumes its place. Darn, this is so good!

With a funky slap bass , "The Lost Ship" floats along willy-nilly as the trilling electric guitar phrasing sends out distress messages, compounded by a nervy synthesizer alarm, though no band members seem to abandon ship. With all hands-on board, the drums are pugnaciously abundant, the pace hurried and frantic, the blistering guitar in your face and the Barabàs solo beyond anything heard in decades, the vessel floundering and sinking fast.

The epic finale and longest track here, "A Storm is Brewing" may be the nail in the proverbial coffin, as it simply encompasses all the details expressed above and then some. The languorous tempo, the Égerhàzi guitar in full flight that foreshadows the arrival of the greying clouds with liquid fervor, the swirling synthesizer gusts, piano droplets crashing down on the rocks, the plaintive shudder of Hackett's drenching guitar, and a melancholic bluesy trumpet bidding farewell , I can only surrender to the fact that this is majestic music at its highest level.

Djabe are without question a global leader in modern jazz, owning all the attributes that make their music such a breath of freshness, a panacea for the soul . 5 polar marmalades

Passport's mix of accessible pop/jazz with distant element of fusion aged better in the 80's than in the heyday of fusion in the late 70's. Music here is well organized and usually has a melodic saxophone line. It also has a charming night vibe, though there are tracks with increased dynamics like "Radiation". The title track is a smooth reggae with a nice chord progression. "Piece for rock orchestra" has an ambitious title however it's beat is quite laid-back. Synthesizer is very 70's oriented and the drummer adds a few powerful fills. It's one of my favourite tracks here. The last two tracks are great smooth fusion numbers in a quiet mood.

Norwegian jazz-rock trio Krokofant are not only back with their sixth album, but they have returned to the trio of Tom Hasslan (guitars), Axel Skalstad (drums) and Jørgen Mathisen (saxophone) following on from two albums where they expanded the line-up with the addition of organist Ståle Storløkken and bassist Ingebrigt Håker Flaten. The first thing ones notices when playing this is that this is very much an album out of time, feeling as if it is coming to us straight from the Seventies with a very high influence from both Soft Machine and King Crimson while Mathisen obviously loves his Coltrane, and the band themselves say this is for fans of Mahavishnu Orchestra, Bushman's Revenge, Elephant9, Red Kite and Kanaan, and any album which references John McLaughlin is going to make me sit up and take notice.

I have often said that a trio is my favourite band format as there is absolutely nowhere to hide, yet it must be said this also sounds like a quartet, given the importance of bass and some Organ. Putting that to one side and wondering just how they replicate it as a trio, this is one heck of an introduction to Krokofant, who are new to me. It is dynamic, powerful, tight as can be imagined, and while there are a few moments which sound as if the band are having a jam, there is plenty more which has obviously been deeply rehearsed given the way the different musicians are locked in for the runs. There is something special about those who have worked together for so long that they have a sixth sense about what they want to achieve and trust everyone implicitly and that is definitely what we have here.

When they wish they can be raw and powering, using distortion as a friend, at others very clean indeed, and Skalstad never stops working, creating a battery of sounds for either Hasslan or Mathisen to bounce against. There is a huge depth to the sound which makes me wish I was playing this on vinyl as opposed to digitally as this is music designed for the richer format. It is jazz inspired progressive rock which has been thrown back fifty years and is all the better for it. All power to Is it Jazz? Records as this is a great album and I look forward to discovering their others.

— First review of this album —

Jemma is a collective of musicians from Velletri, a town near Rome, whose roots date back to 2017 when, on the initiative of Federico Buccini, they began to jam together inspired by jazz, Mediterranean folk, funk and progressive rock. After a good live activity, in 2023 they released an interesting eponymous album on the independent Emme Record label with a line up featuring Federico Buccini (keyboards, piano, guitar), Sofia Ara (flute, sax, vocals), Agnese Antonelli (violin, vocals), Ludovico Franco (trumpet, flugelhorn), Daniel Ventura (sax, flute - from VEMM), Alessandro Recanati (electric guitar), Marco Bruno (bass), Shanti Colucci (drums - from Ingranaggi della Valle and VEMM), Guglielmo Molino (bass), Davide Fabrizio (drums) and Rosario Ceraudo (percussion) plus the guest Gianluca Petrella (trombone). According to the band, it's a concept album about the sea and the culture of the sea where original compositions alternate with traditional folk songs re-elaborated with a jazz rock modern taste in the vein of bands such as Perigeo, Agorà, Snarky Puppy or Weather Report: "Jemma speaks of earth, sea, wind through intimate, tribal, rock, groove and ethnic atmospheres seasoned with an overflowing energy. It is a "crossover" work where jazz, world, rock, funk blend naturally into an original and innovative sound, a mix of identities, a crossroads of styles and souls". For the lyrics, the band chose languages and dialects from the Mediterranean sea like Italian, Portolotto, Salentine Grecanic or Ancient Greek but the focus of this project is more on the music than on the lyrics...

The beautiful opening piece, "Timelapse", is completely instrumental and is paradigmatic of the musical direction followed by the band. It ranges in different musical territories with continuous changes of rhythm and atmosphere. Maybe, it's not by chance that the title refers to a photographic technique in which the frequency at which film frames are captured is much lower than the frequency used to view the sequence. When played at normal speed, time appears to be moving faster and thus lapse..

"Kaneloriza" is a famous traditional song from Asia Minor, in the past interpreted, among others, by Domna Samiou, a prominent Greek researcher and performer of Greek folk music, or Nana Mouskouri. This version blends Rebetiko music style and jazz. The song evokes the dangerous charm of a beautiful cinnamon girl...

From the east shores of the Mediterranean Sea then we sail to the western coasts, towards Spain. "Hija mia mi querida" is a piece that comes from the Sephardic tradition and shows us an example of a poetic and musical genre developed in the Iberian Peninsula since the Middle Age. Although it starts by an acoustic pattern and ethnic flavours, there is no room for flamenco sketches here and soon the music veers into a different direction with a great electric guitar solo...

"Love Road Song" begins softly and the atmosphere is dreamy, with piano trumpet and violin in the forefront. Then the rhythm rises, the pace takes speed and you're off on the road, ready to new musical adventures, like Pytheas of Massalia, a Greek geographer, explorer and astronomer who made a voyage of exploration to Northern Europe in about 325 BC. He was the first known Greek scientific visitor to see and describe the Arctic, polar ice, and the Celtic and Germanic tribes. He is also the first person on record to describe the midnight sun. Pytheas introduced the idea of distant Thule to the geographic imagination, and his account of the tides is the earliest one known that suggests the moon as their cause...

I spent all the previous words about Pytheas to introduce the following track, "I Iriden Sa", an old Swedish folk song full of pagan symbolism. From the Mediterranean Sea to North Europe and snowy landscapes. An Italian band singing in Swedish? To appreciate Jemma's work I invite you to compare this piece with the version of the same song by prog folk Finnish band Gjallarhorn in their 1998 album "Ranarop - Call Of The Sea Witch"...

"Ossi di sabbia" (Sand bones) is a beautiful original piece sung in part in Italian and in part in an ancient dialect called Portolotto that was spoken in all the ports of the Adriatic sea because it was the "lingua franca" of the navy. It was derived from the Venetian language and was almost incomprehensible to most of the people on land. According to the band, "it tells the story of the journey of human beings across the sea, a fabric that connects lands and cultures. To pay even more homage to its meaning we wanted to write the lyrics in Portolotto, a language used by sailors of the Mediterranean. The sand bones are the mineralization of human stories, adventures, difficulties and everything that the sea and the wind can tell about our lives"...

"Winding Way" is an original instrumental track that features the guest Gianluca Petrella on trombone. It takes us with a light pace through jazz rock territories and leads to the final piece, "Nenia Grika" a delicate lullaby that ends the album leaving us amidst dreamy atmospheres in a pleasant sense of peace with a coda in crescendo that might recall PFM...

On the whole, a very good work!

I tuned into a listening party playing this and i was thankful i heard some of Chick Corea's solo work.

This 1976 release features Chick Corea in what was then, and remains, a unique musical setting. While it is truly an electric jazz fusion record, it is also Corea's first solo recording to attempt to address the Latin side of his musical heritage. My Spanish Heart marks a full-scale, yet thoroughly modern, exploration in the musical lineage Corea sprang from. Making full use of synthesizer technology, a string section, and synth-linked choruses -- of two voices, his own and that of Gayle Moran -- as well as percussionist Don Alias, drummer Steve Gadd, a full brass section, and the sparse use of Jean Luc Ponty ("Armando's Rumba") and bassist Stanley Clark, Corea largely succeeded in creating a Spanish/Latin tapestry of sounds, textures, impressions, and even two suites -- "Spanish Fantasy" and "El Bozo." The string quartet performs its intricate and gorgeously elegant arrangements with verve and grace on "Day Danse" and on the suites, with Corea's contrapuntal pianism creating a sharp yet warm contrast to the shifting tempos, wild interval leaps, and shimmering timbral balances that occur. The only pieces that sound dated on this double-album- length set are the fusion pieces, which are, with their production and knotty stop-and-start modulations and key signature equations -- complete with aggressive arpeggios and scalar linguistics -- destined to be limited in expression by the voice of their use of technology. Thus, "Love Castles," "The Gardens," and "Night Streets" suffer from their rather cheesy production despite their tastefully done double fusion semantics (jazz to rock to Latin music). There is no doubt that Corea's musicianship was up to any task he chose at this point in time. Simply put, he was compositionally and intellectually at the top of his game, and this record, despite the many of his that haven't aged well, still surprises despite its production shortcomings.

Excellent Finnish fusion very obscure, and a good sophomore album.

Jukka Rissanen moved to Hungary to study Classical Music at the Franz Liszt Academy and he was replaced by then recently disbanded Jupu Group's Jukka Linkola, while original bassist Jarmo Hiekkala returned to the line-up for the sessions of Finnforest's second album ''Lähtö matkalle'' (1976, Love Records).Synth player Pertti Pokki also contributed some keyboard parts in a few tracks, but in this new album the band seems to have lost some of the energy and inspiration of the debut.Not quite what you'd expect by a band now operating with a normal set-up instead of the reduced trio of ''Finnforest''.The tracks became longer and looser and the compact performances are somewhat missing.This is still rich Fusion music with a bit of Mahavishnu Orchestra resemblances in the guitar/electric piano-driven moments, which are the more dynamic as well.There are also plenty of more laid-back passages with jazzier and more restrained atmospheres, while lots of synth layers make the music more up-to- date.Interplays are accurate, solos are pretty solid and the overall taste is more than positive.It just fails to follow parallel lines with ''Finnforest'' and some of its incredible stylistical/executing changes. my personal highlights are "Elvin" and "Alpha". 4.0 stars