15-10-2020 FAVTRAX:MiX ~ 33 FAVOURiTE tracks 1968-1974

Spirit

15-10-2020  FAVTRAX:MiX ~ 33 FAVOURiTE tracks 1968-1974  >>Spirit, King Crimson, The Moody Blues, Ten Years After, Frank Zappa, Gil Scott-Heron, Nucleus, Jethro Tull, Chick Corea, King Crimson, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Gentle Giant<<

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1968-1974

Ambitious and acclaimed West Coast psychedelic band that fused hard rock to jazz, blues, country, and folk.
Spirit
It's All the Same  (Randy California / Ed Cassidy / Joe Walsh)

I Got a Line on You  (Randy California)
from The Family That Plays Together 1968
On this, the second Spirit album, the group put all of the elements together that made them the legendary (and underrated) band that they were. Jazz, rock & roll, and even classical elements combined to create one of the cleanest, most tasteful syntheses of its day. The group had also improved measurably from their fine debut album, especially in the area of vocals. The album's hit single, "I Got a Line on You," boasts especially strong harmonies as well as one of the greatest rock riffs of the period. The first side of this record is a wonderful and seamless suite, and taken in its entirety, one of the greatest sides on Los Angeles rock...

If there is one group that embodies progressive rock, it is King Crimson. Led by guitar/Mellotron virtuoso Robert Fripp, during its first five years of existence the band stretched both the language and structure of rock into realms of jazz and classical music, all the while avoiding pop and psychedelic sensibilities. The absence of mainstream compromises and the lack of an overt sense of humor ultimately doomed the group to nothing more than a large cult following, but made their albums among the most enduring and respectable of the prog rock era...
King Crimson
21st Century Schizoid Man (Robert Fripp / Michael Giles / Greg Lake / Ian McDonald / Peter Sinfield)
Epitaph  (Robert Fripp / Michael Giles / Greg Lake / Ian McDonald / Peter Sinfield)
The Court of the Crimson King (Ian McDonald / Peter Sinfield)
from Epitaph (Live, 1969)
This two-disc archival set includes live performances from the short-lived incipient 1969 incarnation of King Crimson. After months of arduous sonic restoration -- or what Robert Fripp (guitar) refers to as "necromancy" -- the results are well worth the painstaking processes involved... Joining Fripp are Ian McDonald (flute/sax/mellotron/vocals), Greg Lake (bass/vocals), Michael Giles (drums/percussion/vocals), and the only non-performing member, Peter Sinfield (words/illuminations). They single-handedly fused electric rock music with jazz in a way that no one else has done before or, arguably, since...

Pop mystics of the rock era whose impeccably produced albums exuded pseudo-classical glory, driven by lush Mellotron orchestrations.
The Moody Blues
Floating (Ray Thomas)
Gypsy (Of a Strange and Distant Time) (ustin Hayward)
Watching and Waiting (Justin Hayward / Ray Thomas)
from To Our Children's Children's Children 1969
...The material dwells mostly on time and what its passage means, and there is a peculiar feeling of loneliness and isolation to many of the songs. This was also the last of the group's big "studio" sound productions, built up in layer upon layer of overdubbed instruments -- the sound is very lush and rich, but proved impossible to re-create properly on-stage, and after this they would restrict themselves to recording songs that the five of them could play in concert...

A storming blues and boogie band from the U.K., Ten Years After rocketed from modest success to worldwide fame in the wake of their performance at the Woodstock Rock Festival in 1969, where their nine-minute rendition of "I'm Going Home" showed off the lightning-fast guitar work and howling vocals of Alvin Lee, the unrelenting stomp of bassist Leo Lyons and drummer Ric Lee, and the soulful support of keyboard man Chick Churchill. 
Ten Years After 

Sugar the Road (Alvin Lee)

Working on the Road (Alvin Lee)

50,000 Miles Beneath My Brain (Alvin Lee)

Love Like a Man (Alvin Lee)

from Cricklewood Green 1970

Cricklewood Green provides the best example of Ten Years After's recorded sound. On this album, the band and engineer Andy Johns mix studio tricks and sound effects, blues-based song structures, a driving rhythm section, and Alvin Lee's signature lightning-fast guitar licks into a unified album that flows nicely from start to finish. Cricklewood Green opens with a pair of bluesy rockers, with "Working on the Road" propelled by a guitar and organ riff that holds the listener's attention through the use of tape manipulation as the song develops. "50,000 Miles Beneath My Brain" and "Love Like a Man" are classics of TYA's jam genre, with lyrically meaningless verses setting up extended guitar workouts that build in intensity, rhythmically and sonically...

The creator of radical rock during the '60s who later pursued even more adventurous avenues, ranging from jazz-rock to classical composition.

Frank Zappa 

Red Tubular Lighter (Frank Zappa)

Item 1 (Frank Zappa)

Giraffe [Take 4] (Frank Zappa)

from The Mothers 1970

...The Mothers (Zappa trimmed the "Of Invention" part of their moniker when he re-grouped them) lasted barely seven months. But the lineup is among one of Zappa's most celebrated: drummer Aynsley Dunbar, pianist George Duke, organist Ian Underwood, bassist Jeff Simmons and Flo & Eddie, the aliases of the Turtles' Howard Kaylan and Mark Volman, who weren't allowed to appear under their own names for contractual reasons...

Politically charged poet and singer of jazz/R&B polemics, and a huge influence on countless hip-hop incendiaries.

Gil Scott-Heron 

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised (Gil Scott-Heron)

Save the Children (Gil Scott-Heron)

Lady Day and John Coltrane (Gil Scott-Heron)

from Pieces of a Man 1971

Gil Scott-Heron's 1971 album Pieces of a Man set a standard for vocal artistry and political awareness that few musicians will ever match. His unique proto-rap vocal style influenced a generation of hip-hop artists, and nowhere is his style more powerful than on the classic "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised." Even though the media -- the very entity attacked in this song -- has used, reused, and recontextualized the song and its title so many times, the message is so strong that it has become almost impossible to co-opt. Musically, the track created a formula that modern hip-hop would follow for years to come: bare-bones arrangements featuring pounding basslines and stripped-down drumbeats...

Nucleus began its long jazz-rock journey in 1969, when it was originally formed by trumpeter Ian Carr. They attracted a following after a successful performance at the Montreux International Festival in 1970, which led to the critical success of albums Elastic Rock and We'll Talk About It Later...

Nucleus 

Song for the Bearded Lady (Karl Jenkins)

Lullaby for a Lonely Child (Karl Jenkins)

Sun Child (Jeff Clyne / John Marshall)

from We'll Talk About It Later 1971

Although Nucleus made an acclaimed performance at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1970, the U.K. proto-fusionists never became particularly popular in the States, with much of their recorded output only available as import releases. In fact, in certain quarters Nucleus is known primarily as a source of musicians who joined the latter-day Soft Machine, itself a group that never moved too far beyond cult status. Composer/keyboardist/reedman Karl Jenkins, drummer John Marshall, bassist Roy Babbington, and guitarist Allan Holdsworth all played with Nucleus at one time or another, and all had moved over to the Soft Machine lineup by the time the Softs (with Mike Ratledge the only original remaining member of the band) issued Bundles in 1975. ..

Courtly progressive rock tinged with folk, led by charismatic flutist Ian Anderson and author of progressive landmarks including Aqualung. Jethro Tull were a unique phenomenon in popular music history. Their mix of hard rock, folk melodies, blues licks, surreal, impossibly dense lyrics, and overall profundity defied easy analysis, but that didn't dissuade fans from giving them 11 gold and five platinum albums. 

Jethro Tull 

Thick as a Brick (Ian Anderson / Gerald Bostock)

from Thick As A Brick 1972

Jethro Tull's first LP-length epic is a masterpiece in the annals of progressive rock, and one of the few works of its kind that still holds up decades later. Mixing hard rock and English folk music with classical influences, set to stream-of-consciousness lyrics so dense with imagery that one might spend weeks pondering their meaning -- assuming one feels the need to do so -- the group created a dazzling tour de force, at once playful, profound, and challenging, without overwhelming the listener. The original LP was the best-sounding, best-engineered record Tull had ever released, easily capturing the shifting dynamics between the soft all-acoustic passages and the electric rock crescendos surrounding them.

Talented pianist who has a wide palate of influences but was highly important in early fusion and jazz-rock. A masterful jazz pianist, Chick Corea is a celebrated performer whose influential albums have found him exploring harmonically adventurous post-bop, electric fusion, Latin traditions, and classical.

Chick Corea 

Return to Forever (Chick Corea)

What Game Shall We Play Today? (Chick Corea / Neville Potter)

from Return to Forever 1972

The legendary first lineup of Chick Corea's fusion band Return to Forever debuted on this classic album (titled after the group but credited to Corea), featuring Joe Farrell on soprano sax and flute, the Brazilian team of vocalist Flora Purim and drummer/percussionist Airto Moreira, and electric bass whiz Stanley Clarke. It wasn't actually released in the U.S. until 1975, which was why the group's second album, Light as a Feather, initially made the Return to Forever name. Nonetheless, Return to Forever is every bit as classic, using a similar blend of spacy electric-piano fusion and Brazilian and Latin rhythms. It's all very warm, light, and airy, like a soft breeze on a tropical beach...

Arguably the definitive exponents of British progressive rock, spurred on by Robert Fripp's innovative guitar work. If there is one group that embodies progressive rock, it is King Crimson. Led by guitar/Mellotron virtuoso Robert Fripp, during its first five years of existence the band stretched both the language and structure of rock into realms of jazz and classical music, all the while avoiding pop and psychedelic sensibilities. The absence of mainstream compromises and the lack of an overt sense of humor ultimately doomed the group to nothing more than a large cult following, but made their albums among the most enduring and respectable of the prog rock era.

King Crimson 

Larks' Tongues in Aspic, Pt. 1 (Bill Bruford / David Cross / Robert Fripp / Jamie Muir / John Wetton)

Book of Saturday (Robert Fripp / Richard Palmer-James / John Wetton)

Exiles (David Cross / Robert Fripp / Richard Palmer-James)

from Larks' Tongues In Aspic 1973

King Crimson reborn yet again -- the then-newly configured band makes its debut with a violin (courtesy of David Cross) sharing center stage with Robert Fripp's guitars and his Mellotron, which is pushed into the background. The music is the most experimental of Fripp's career up to this time -- though some of it actually dated (in embryonic form) back to the tail-end of the Boz Burrell-Ian Wallace-Mel Collins lineup. And John Wetton was the group's strongest singer/bassist since Greg Lake's departure three years earlier. What's more, this lineup quickly established itself as a powerful performing unit, working in a more purely experimental, less jazz-oriented vein than its immediate predecessor. "Outer Limits music" was how one reviewer referred to it, mixing Cross' demonic fiddling with shrieking electronics, Bill Bruford's astounding dexterity at the drum kit, Jamie Muir's melodic and usually understated percussion, Wetton's thundering yet melodic bass, and Fripp's guitar, which generated sounds ranging from traditional classical and soft pop-jazz licks to hair-curling electric flourishes.

Led by guitarist John McLaughlin, a band whose sophisticated improvisations and high-powered music helped pioneer the jazz-rock fusion of the '70s. One of the premiere fusion groups, the Mahavishnu Orchestra were considered by most observers during their prime to be a rock band, but their sophisticated improvisations actually put their high-powered music between rock and jazz. Founder and leader John McLaughlin had recently played with Miles Davis and Tony Williams' Lifetime. 

Mahavishnu Orchestra 

Birds of Fire (John McLaughlin)

Miles Beyond (John McLaughlin)

Celestial Terrestrial Commuters (John McLaughlin)

from Birds Of Fire 1973

Emboldened by the popularity of Inner Mounting Flame among rock audiences, the first Mahavishnu Orchestra set out to further define and refine its blistering jazz-rock direction in its second -- and, no thanks to internal feuding, last -- studio album. Although it has much of the screaming rock energy and sometimes exaggerated competitive frenzy of its predecessor, Birds of Fire is audibly more varied in texture, even more tightly organized, and thankfully more musical in content. A remarkable example of precisely choreographed, high-speed solo trading -- with John McLaughlin, Jerry Goodman, and Jan Hammer all of one mind, supported by Billy Cobham's machine-gun drumming and Rick Laird's dancing bass -- can be heard on the aptly named "One Word," and the title track is a defining moment of the group's nearly atonal fury...

Acclaimed British progressive rock band noted for their meld of hard rock with classical music and medieval approach to singing. Formed at the dawn of the progressive rock era in 1969, Gentle Giant seemed poised for a time in the mid-'70s to break out of its cult-band status... Somewhat closer in spirit to Yes and King Crimson than to Emerson, Lake & Palmer or the Nice, their unique sound melded hard rock and classical music, with an almost medieval approach to singing.

Gentle Giant 

Playing the Game (Kerry Minnear / Derek Shulman / Ray Shulman)

Cogs in Cogs (Kerry Minnear / Derek Shulman / Ray Shulman)

No God's a Man (Kerry Minnear / Derek Shulman / Ray Shulman)

from The Power And The Glory 1974

...When asked where he thinks ‘The Power and the Glory’ sits in the catalog of 11 albums Gentle Giant released in their 10-year existence, Derek pets his beard with the back of his hand, gazes out a second and says, "I think it’s part of the culmination of what Gentle Giant had become. A band has to go through the same processes as a person. A band is born, has a childhood and then goes into adulthood. I think we became an adult on ‘The Power and the Glory’. It was Gentle Giant becoming adults and the culmination of the best of our musicianship coming together as a band; it was a golden period for the band. Not to say any period before or after was better or worse, but it was a good period in being creative musically while gaining fan acceptance."...

1974