JAZZ ROCK/FUSION

This record was one of my TOP favorites during an era where I found myself immersed in college studies and during a time when life-changing decisions were thrust upon me. It also happens to be one of the albums my wife and I really dug while we were dating. So, for me to say that this is just "another album" would be very far from the truth. Individual Choice is VERY special to me.

It's quite evident that at the point that JLP composed and recorded the music on Individual Choice he was completely immersed in electronic music. It's fair to say that this album sounds a LOT like a Jean Michel Jarre record but with a violin as the solo instrument of choice. Some may argue that it's not completely original and that he borrowed here and there from Jarre. Even if that were the case, JLP pulls it off very elegantly and with his own personal stamp.

As for the songs, well, I will say this about ONE song in particular: In Spiritual Love. George Dukes's Mini-Moog solo on that cut is quite possibly ONE OF THE GREATEST keyboard solos EVER. The foundation is set by JLP's funky, slow tempo, synth sequence and about 1/3 of the way through Duke slowly builds his solo to a point where it gets pretty darn hard to hold back a tear. It's THAT GOOD. The album is worth the price of purchase JUST for that tune. No kidding!

Ah, but I forgot about another musician on the album......Allan Holdsworth. The guitarist plays on two songs but I don't find his playing inspired or inspiring. Sure, he does his legato thing with a bit more bite and distortion than normal Holdsworth fare, but overall it's not very impressive or memorable. He's done MUCH better than this. But, to be be fair Allan's set the bar so high that we tend to expect miracles from him every time he appears on an album. So it's all good with Holdsworth on this album.

After twenty five years have passed since my first listen I can now find a bit more fault with this album. First off, it suffers from filler material in several places and it's quite blatant too. Seems that this was a quick project for JLP(he released the masterpiece Mystical Adventure a year earlier) and it's easy to see by the sparse instrumentation and production that he was trying to finish the record asap. This is not to say that it's a bad record, because it's not. It's actually very good. Just NOT GREAT.

It's impossible, for me at least, to give ANY JLP album less than four stars. Reason being that the best moments of any JLP record are usually so good that they completely eclipse anything else that may be negative throughout the album.

This is a FOUR STAR effort by JLP and should be enjoyed by proggers who don't mind a bit of Euro electronica mixed in with their prog.

On Mystical Adventures you won't find the heavy funk of Civilized Evil or the shredding jazz-rock fest that's Enigmatic Ocean. Instead, you have a record that offers some jaw-dropping jazz keyboard work from Chris Rhyne(synths, keys and acoustic piano) and some excellent jazz drumming from Rayford Griffin. Notice the emphasis on JAZZ. Please keep in mind that JLP is first and foremost a jazz musician. For all of the classical training he may have had and for all of the heavier rock he experimented with on Enigmatic Ocean, JLP is a jazz musician and he makes a BIG jazz statement on Mystical Adventures.

As can be expected on any of his records, JLP's playing is sublime and at times superhuman. His legato technique on some of the soloing is.....well.....BEYOND GREAT! If it's even possible to say such a thing.

Some may argue that a few of the pieces are too close to new age or world music for the album to be considered a progressive work. But I would disagree with that notion. JLP's approach invariably incorporates a handful of softer, synth-sequenced tunes where he will solo over them with his violins or layer more synths to create his own brand of tehcno-space-fusion. That's always been the JLP style and you either like it or don't. I love it!

I recommend Mystical Adventures to proggers who are willing to give jazz a chance. This is not a "rocking" jazz-fusion album, but instead a record that leans heavily toward the jazz side of the fence. You will find that the musicianship is EXTRAORDINARY and the songs, although shorter than on your epic prog albums, are impeccably composed and executed.

Mystical Adventures gets an easy FIVE STAR, masterpiece rating.

I have to say, unequivocally, that this is ONE OF THE BEST records I've ever listened to. It's progressive, yet accessible, showcasing some of JLP's best music of his career. I'm quite surprised not seeing a single FIVE STAR rating anywhere for this album. Stunned is more accurate!

This album is not very "European". By that I mean that it's not as classically oriented as some of his other records and not necessarily as jazzy either. Civilized Evil is the funkiest, most urban work that that JLP had done to date; closer to rock and electronica than jazz or classical. Randy Jackson, of American Idol fame, holds down some of the NASTIEST bass grooves you will ever hear on any JLP record; or on ANY record! The doubling of the bass lines on bass guitar and synths makes for a very heavy, thick, urban soundscape.

If you haven't heard much, if any, JLP you need to be advised that MOST JLP records, and MOST CERTAINLY Civilized Evil, contain LOTS AND LOTS of keyboards and synths. If you HATE keyboard driven music you should probably pass on Jean-Luc Ponty's Civilized Evil. That being said, Chris Ryne's work on this record is right up there, and perhaps surpasses, the best work by any other keyboard player that JLP has ever worked with. Fast and furious solo lines blend seamlessly with sequenced passages and funky electric piano comps.

As for guitars, well, you don't listen to JLP for guitars(aside from Enigmatic Ocean, featuring Allan Holdsworth). Guitars are typically relegated to rhythm duties and an occasional solo. This is not to say that the guitars are bad. On the contrary! It's just that JLP's music is not guitar-centric. On Civilized Evil the main guitarist is Joaquin Lieavano, a JLP fixture on a handful of other albums, and Daryl Sturmer who lends a hand by supplying solos on some of the best tracks of the album. His solo duel with JLP on Good Guys, Bad Guys is specially nasty and fast; typical Sturmer stuff.

And....of course, JLP's violin virtuosity, as always, is in top form on Civilized Evil: beautiful, melodic solos with the patented JLP scalar madness on display in full force. Perhaps what I like most about Civilized Evil are the melodies and how they interplay so well with the underlying, ever-present FUNK that's laid down by Jackson(bass), Mark Craney(drums) and Rhyme(keys).

I HIGHLY recommend Civilized Evil and I EASILY consider it a masterpiece and a top jewel of the JLP catalog. Proggers who enjoy melodies intertwined with daring synth/keyboard work(ala Eddie Jobson of UK) should enjoy this recording immensely.

Sure, it's predecessor, Enigmatic Ocean, was a landmark recording if there ever was one in the jazz-fusion realm, but it seems that we allow ourselves to judge albums based on previous or future efforts instead of listening to a given record in isolation, without bias.

Cosmic Messenger was my introduction to JLP and only a year or two later did I listen to Enigmatic Ocean. I'm glad that was the progression I took because it's made me appreciate Cosmic Messenger all the more. Honestly, I can't find much difference between the two records, as far as complexity and musicianship are concerned. Other than the trickier solo trading between Holdsworth and Ponty on Ocean nothing stands out from Ocean enough to eclipse Cosmic Messenger.

One thing we can be sure of: Cosmic Messenger is THE LAST HEAVY JLP album. After this he started getting into synth sequencing and more softer, melodic and funkier stuff. Here we have much more distorted and effect driven violin solos than on any future JLP release. The guitars play heavier comping lines and the overall feel of the album is more prog-jazz-rock(think of UK) than the techno-jazz-fusion found in later releases. The guitar solos are more prominent and rock oriented than on most anything that we find later on.

Specially interesting to proggers should be the pieces Don't Let The World Pass You By and Egocentric Molecules. The former has JLP performing violin shredding gymnastics via effects and distortion that may have you wondering if it's a guitar, a keyboard or....or....who knows what! The latter is a flat-out prog masterpiece. Heavy, intense, melodic and frightening to hear such COSMIC musicianship!

FIVE STAR MASTERPIECE, without much thought and equal to Enigmatic Ocean in every respect.

The year was 1977 and the jazz-fusion juggernaut was steamrolling along at a furious pace. Five years earlier the Mahavishnu Orchestra had gotten the ball rolling by dropping an atomic bomb on the music, and specially the jazz, world with their Birds of Fire release. The year before, in 1976, Return to Forever did the unthinkable by trumping Mahavishnu with their Romantic Warrior masterpiece; which many consider the epitome of jazz-fusion. The same year, 1977, Weather Report matched the other giants' punch for punch with their standard-setting Heavy Weather.

So, what's Jean-Luc Ponty to do? Sit back and LISTEN?! Hardly! He too enters the ring and dons the fusion gloves.

Not much more can be added about this record that hasn't already been said. History has proven that Enigmatic Ocean has stood the test of time as ONE OF THE TOP JAZZ-FUSION RECORDS OF ALL-TIME. Top ten, for sure, and some have it rated in their top five list, or even higher.

Rankings aside, this is just GREAT MUSIC. PERIOD! A masterpiece of the highest caliber. With a line-up including Allan Holdsworth on guitar, Steve Smith on drums and JLP there is little that could go wrong. Specially, when given the aforementioned competitive climate of the times.

My thirteen year old son who's into the usual prog-metal fare(Dream Theater, Vai, Porcupine Tree, Spock's Beard et al) was blown away by Enigmatic Ocean and couldn't believe how "FAST EVERYONE WAS PLAYING". Yes, son, that is jazz-fusion for ya! Everyone, playing REAL FAST!!!

All of that being said, this is NOT my favorite JLP record. That would be Civilized Evil. For all of the shredding and syncopated, mind-blowing intricacies of Enigmatic Ocean I don't think that this is JLP's best. Sure, the musicianship is out of this galaxy but the melodious, smoother work of later recordings is more to my liking.

FIVER STAR, Masterpiece that every progger should own.

It is said that this Pat Metheny objectively caught a certain Jazz/Fusion in the 70's of the seed. It might have been one point to the main current that had to be able to be said it was reactionary.

The challenge to the music of him who was born in Missouri state in the United States and the technology that cultivates it might be reflected in the tune and there be a part that cannot be caught as music of him indiscriminately original who is when the listener listens to the music.

Of course, "Bright Size Life" that Pat Metheny had announced in the ECM label in 1975 will have been a content that exactly sent an indeed new wind for the item of Jazz/Fusion. Perfection of tune that exceeds frame of Jazz/Fusion. And, the melody with a transparent feeling. And, the height of the quality of ensemble as Trio. Those elements have been succeeded to "Watercolors" announced from "Bright Size Life" in 1977 as an extension of the methodology.

The technology and knowledge for his performance are the well-known facts. However, the fact that has boldly introduced a new element into the concept of Jazz/Fusion. Those elements might have been in the part and the environment of the music that the character and he of him had cultivated.

The flow of which Pat Metheny debuted from work with Gary Burton in ECM is a well-known fact. However, many and the idea of the work to listen with ECM after he debuts are abundant parts and are established. They were one of the situations that worked naturally as agreeing.

His great-grandfather was an immigrant who had immigrated to Wisconsin state at the 19th end of the century. His blood as a pure Norse had been succeeded by the grandfather. It is said that his grandfather is a trumpeter. Flow and element that Pat Metheny produced this album in Oslo in Norway via ECM. And, his until transfered the register to Geffen Record work might have created music high-quality as indeed agreed with those elements. It is not an exaggeration to say that the element to which the performance a new creation is always brought in to the item of Jazz/Fusion after it debuts and with a deep, transparent feeling is taken might agree with his character and situation.

This "Pat Metheny Group" might be one pronoun for Pat Metheny. And, Lyle Mays and Pat Metheny of the keyboard player who formed the nucleus of the music character of this group formed this group in May of 1977. Two people who had gotten acquainted in the Jazz festival held with Wichita of Kansas state in 1976 thought that it was impressed on a music character each other and was going to share. And, Pat Metheny is Mark Egan of the Bass player who was the colleague at the university. And, drum player's Dan Gottlieb joined and the member of this group was fixed. Part where ensemble as band was established from methodology to listen by "Bright Size Life" and "Watercolors" further. And, the technology and the idea of Pat Metheny. They are satisfactorily demonstrated in the debut album of this group.

A transparent feeling is an overflowing melody of "San Lorenzo". And, a variegated sound is made from Lyle Mays. The sound exactly has a transparent feeling. The performance to make good use of Reverb as one of the elements of the performance of Pat Metheny will be able to be enumerated. The performance might often have the impression with a loose tune oppositely with powerful of Ad-Rib with contrasted part. However, the part where the response and motion cohabits doesn't have the sense of incompatibility as a perfection of the tune. It will give the soundscape further by the performance of this group. The tune gradually receives the top from beautiful piano Solo. This transparent feeling might be their patents. And, the melody with nostalgia continues.

As for "Phase Dance", the rhythm of the samba with the guitar is impressive. And, Solo that there is a transparent feeling in the progress of peculiar Chord is impressive. Each musician makes the wave by making good use of fast and slow. Making Dynamics that does while establishing the atmosphere of the tune might be splendid. The sound of the group that doesn't do as a rhythm of the obstinate samba has succeeded. And, the synthesizer that appears in the part of Coda creates a very progressive sound.

As for "Jaco", the group combines from chord of a gentle guitar. The feature on minor chord the flow that syncopation is made good use of. Solo of Bass has put out the element of Fretless well. Ensemble with the guitar and the drum is also splendid each other.

"Aprilwind" will have working of the intro because of the connection to "April Joy". The guitar with the anacatesthesia continues. The sound in which 12- string guitar is made good use of has a very original part.

As for "April Joy", the line of Bass twines round the arpeggio of the guitar with the anacatesthesia. The tune shifts from the theme that does development repeatedly to solo of the guitar. Solo of the guitar might surely understand the tune. The piano twines and the tune faces quiet development again. The sound of the keyboard that appears during the tune is also progressive. The theme flows slowly and hurtles through space.

"Lone Jack" is a tune that Pat Metheny often performs in live. This tune might be a tune of the representative of Pat Metheny. A progressive element by the sound of the synthesizer and the shift to solo are splendid from legato of cymbals of a fast tempo. The technology of the guitar and the processing performance of the sound to Chord are overwhelming. The group continues the dash feeling in union. And, the tune shifts to piano Solo. How Lyle Mays contributes for this group might be understood. Music offers the shape of complete Jazz/Fusion to the element of a little Latin by their original interpretations.

When interviewing it, Pat Metheny was made remarks, "It was Offramp that the sound of the band established". This group certainly receives a reformative part in "Offramp" and one the top is received in possession "First Circle". And, it might surely be their of this debut albums that form the base as a flow of the group.

Obviously influenced by RETURN TO FOREVER and in a lesser extent BRAND X,the band delivers highly-energetic jazz/fusion rock with tight performances and impressive musicianship.Especially keyboardist Gerard Maimone had to be a great CHICK COREA fan,his electric piano work is very solid and professional,but he also delivers strong doses of moog solos.Apart from the typical groovy and filled with interplays parts of the album,there is also lots of space for Micheal Perez to show his talent with nice solos and decent melodies,while in some moments the music gets really dark with obscure guitar chords and massive ''in your head'' synths,creating a haunting atmosphere.This is a quite good release from a lesser-known band with both enjoyable and well-arranged jazz/rock music,fine interplays and always an intensive delivery.Recommended, especially to the fans of the genre.

For me, fusion was a very intense but short-lived style in the 70's, meaning most bands had one or two spectacular albums in them before the inspiration ran out and they faded away in pointless style-exercises. And so fared Brand X. Their debut was their finest hour where they defined what they were about over the course of 7 great improvisations.

I'm not knowledgeable enough about all things jazz to point out why I like this one so very much. So without analyzing this any deeper, I'd say it just feels right and well, isn't that just enough once in a while?

From very first song you feel like returning back to beautiful Latin fusion of early RTF. But when the song is finished, you undrestand, that it was just an illusion. "Hello Again" will shock you - weak pop-jazz song sounds as it came from old third level american movie. And step by step you hear, that it isn't "Return To Forever" - Gayle Moran is competent singer, but has no magic of Flora Purim. Brass section often plays riffs in a manner of early Chicago. Only Clarke bass line is great there.

In all, album sounds as collection of pop-jazz songs. Even if there are some nice moments, common feeling isn't so good. Should be interesting for Corea/Clarke/RTF collectors mainly.