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Album Discussion: RTF - "Light As A Feather"

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darkshade View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote darkshade Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 20 Aug 2012 at 1:55pm
You gotta admit that Sorceress is a fusion classic, and the title track is probably the jazziest song on the album, and a beautiful one at that. The albums being chosen for this series is partially based on their popularity.

I know what you mean about the first couple of RTF albums and the latin-jazz sound they had, and" Light As a Feather" has Chick's best Rhoades Piano sound I've ever heard from him. As far as the rock-fusion albums, I used to like "Where Have I Known You Before" the most, but lately I've been preferring "Hymn of the Seventh Galaxy"
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Kazuhiro Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 20 Aug 2012 at 6:39pm

"Romantic Warrior" is really classic Jazz Rock/Fusion album so that everybody says. I suppose that it was a fact to have reached an end and a top having one album as a then lineup.

And I agreed to an opinion of Mike as a personal opinion. Bill Connors left the band immediately. I do not know the withdrawal that it is voluntary or the discharge. However, Chick Corea had perfect intention in those days about a band. I think that, as a result, I was discharged from Bill Connors. However, I think Connors to have done it well.

The reason that RTF changed to the route such as Hymn of the Seventh Galaxy was existence of the MO. It was a fact that Chick Corea gave vent to feelings under the influence of MO. I think that a band did not arrive at Romantic Warrior if 7th Galaxy does not exist.

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Sean Trane Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 21 Aug 2012 at 4:12am
Originally posted by snobb snobb wrote:

I prefer RTF's first line-up and their Latin-influenced fusion, from later releases "Where Have I Know You Before" is more interesting for me. "Romantic Warrior" is still good album, kind of "prog rock played by jazz musicians", but there are more rockers doing it much better. From other hand, for jazz/fusion listener this album is probably ... let say "too much rock"
Agreed actually!!
 
I can't help thinking that Chick had listened to a lot of Gentle Giant and some Yes before setting this album down on paper.
 
And yes, as a "jazzer" (been into it since the mid-80's)  I much prtefer Seventh Galaxy... and I have a lot of sympathy for the forst line-up... I just wish Purim wasn't singing on those albums... I don't have much sympathy for No Mystery, though, but it's still a classic line-up album... However things really went awry with Musicmagic
my music collection increased tenfolds when I switched from drug-addicted musicians to crazy ones....

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote darkshade Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 27 Aug 2012 at 10:30am
OK, next album up is................ Weather Report - "Heavy Weather"


A possibly controversial album to bring up, but a popular one. It has Birdland, which anyone who joins their middle school or high school jazz band will probably hear and play. I personally had heard and played the tune for years in jazz bands in school before actually hearing the original recording on here. This helped me appreciate the album as a whole. This was actually my first Weather Report album, along with Black Market, and I liked both albums, before I even knew that they had a fusion career before Jaco Pastorious, who is just amazing here, I love Jaco btw. I think "A Remark You Made" is beautiful, and makes me feel a little nostalgic.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote js Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 27 Aug 2012 at 10:39am
This was a fun album and you heard it all the time back when it came out. I saw the tour for this album too. Eventually I got burned out on "Birdland", it just got played to death.
The tour show was good, but I had preferred seeing the earlier version of WR with Alphonso on bass. Overall, my favorite WR albums were the earlier ones, both with Mirsalov and Alphonso.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote snobb Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 27 Aug 2012 at 11:14am
I really like two first WR albums (almost masterpieces), later band changed direction towards more accessible (and far not so interesting) music. "Heavy Weather" is average album from WR middle period, and kind of borderline for me - almost everything,what was released before is better, and almost everything, what WR released after,is below "Heavy Weather"'s level.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Kazuhiro Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 27 Aug 2012 at 7:14pm

Heavy Weather thinks me to have been one top for a band. Or it is a turning point. Various musicians would take up the music recorded in this album.

I think that they were not established if there is not really Jaco. "A Remark You Made" and "Teen Town" are particularly remarkable. They are already becoming the classic song. Of course it is remarkable even in 8:30 version.

Of course I like their early work, but the flexibility that the band accomplishing evolution and a change like this by a rhythm section does not exist too much, and Zawinul and Shorter have will be included.

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Sean Trane Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 29 Aug 2012 at 2:37am
Kaz, if any WR repôrt album would be a turning point, it would be the preceding Black Market album... I'm not a fan of either albums... I used to love (this is relative since I found out about the band once they folded around 85 or 6, if memory serves) WR, because their early albums were fairly to very focused. Whether the Vitous era (the first three + Live in Tokyo) or to a lesser extent, the Johnson "interlude" (MT + TS) , WR was a solid avant-garde jazz-rock outfit
 
I don't know if Pastorius' arrival changed Zawienul (the one making the decisions in the band - almost the dictator >> Shorter was letting him do it all) and his overall musical outlook, but from the album where Jaco appears, WR's focus was suddendly wide-ranging and broadbrushing ... To actually call these two pure-fusion or JR/F albums would be kind of misleading, since there is a bit of everything in them
 
Both HW and BM are highly commercial albums, but then again it was HH's HH album that poaved the way for huge-selling albums
 
 
 
 
my music collection increased tenfolds when I switched from drug-addicted musicians to crazy ones....

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Kazuhiro Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 29 Aug 2012 at 2:48am
Yes. The point where Jaco joined. And the point where WR changed the route to. When I think about them, I can consider the turning point as "Black Market". I think that the directionality of the band changed to some extent when rhythm sections were always changed by a thought of Zawinul and Shorter. I do not know whether I should call it evolution. However, I think that they expressed the style well with the times.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Kazuhiro Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 29 Aug 2012 at 2:54am
Furthermore, I know the reason why Herbie Hancock introduced Jazz Funk into in "Head Hunters". "Sextant" has the part that the musicality in the album in the days of Waner Bros is succeeded. However, the HH album changed the route suddenly. There was a firm reason for this process.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Sean Trane Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 29 Aug 2012 at 7:32am
Originally posted by Kazuhiro Kazuhiro wrote:

Yes. The point where Jaco joined. And the point where WR changed the route to. When I think about them, I can consider the turning point as "Black Market". I think that the directionality of the band changed to some extent when rhythm sections were always changed by a thought of Zawinul and Shorter. I do not know whether I should call it evolution. However, I think that they expressed the style well with the times.
 
Well, the drum stool in WR was always a revolving door, which was not the case of the bassist 
 
Right from the start WR was Shorter, Zawie and Vitous as a stable line-up
 
However, Zawie found that Vitous was too "European" (as if he was not Austrian himself) and sort of fired Vitous
 
But I always counted WR's duiscrography by the bassist era, because that third spot was indicative of a style:
Vitous-era (WR, Body Electric & Sweetnighter) >> experimental JR/F ala Mwandishi)
Johnson-ere (MT & TS) >> more of a jazz funk (find a groove abnd stay in it)
Pastorius-era (BW until Night passages or further) >> anything goes >> world, bop, fusion, etc...
Victor Bailey-era (until the break-up) >> not too familiar, but more or less in  the Jaco style
 
Originally posted by Kazuhiro Kazuhiro wrote:

Furthermore, I know the reason why Herbie Hancock introduced Jazz Funk into in "Head Hunters". "Sextant" has the part that the musicality in the album in the days of Waner Bros is succeeded. However, the HH album changed the route suddenly. There was a firm reason for this process.
 
I suppose that when you say WB, you mean Atlantic
 
Yeah, I guess Ahmet Ertegun really missed the goose with the golden egg with HH...  He'd spent money to lure away HH from Blue note and only had one album that sold more or less well: Fat Albert Rotunda (which becalme a hit because of the TV anime series)...  Sooo Clive Davis (Columbia) really had a horseshoe up his ass, but then again his label had almost every JR/F big groups in his stable (Miles, later RTF, HH's HH,  MO, WR, Soft Machine, etc...only Coryell(s 11th House was missing ...
  
BTW, I think Sextant is the best of the three Mwandishi albums too, but I'm not sure it outsold the other two, despite the spectacular artwork
 
 
my music collection increased tenfolds when I switched from drug-addicted musicians to crazy ones....

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote darkshade Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 29 Aug 2012 at 12:03pm
Yea, with Jaco came the world music influence, which he loved, and I think turned Zawinul on to it big time, I mean, look at The Zawinul Syndicate, though that band is awesome.

I agree that Sextant is the best of the 3 Mwandishi albums.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Cannonball With Hat Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 29 Aug 2012 at 3:46pm
Originally posted by snobb snobb wrote:

"Heavy Weather" is average album from WR middle period, and kind of borderline for me - almost everything,what was released before is better, and almost everything, what WR released after,is below "Heavy Weather"'s level.
 
Pretty much my feelings. Average at best to my ears.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote darkshade Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 08 Sep 2012 at 1:34pm
Next up, I'm sure we all know THIS album: Miles Davis - "Kind of Blue"
http://www.progarchives.com/progressive_rock_discography_covers/3906/cover_394265122010.jpg

This may be the most popular jazz album ever, but for good reason. This album is absolutely beautiful. I listened to KOB recently actually, and it never fails to bring my mood up. I've actually listened to this album feeling like crap, and by the end of it, felt so much better. You also can't go wrong with this lineup, Coltrane, Cannonball, Jones, Evans, and Chambers. This might also be the most important album made in the 20th century, as subjective as that may be.

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote js Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 08 Sep 2012 at 3:29pm
Yes, I have several vinyl copies as well as a music book that maps out every single note played on the album, just in case you want to try out one of their solos.
"All Blues" was a favorite tune when I was young. I haven't listened to this album in a while, but I still like it.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Sean Trane Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 08 Sep 2012 at 4:26pm
Oooohhhh!!!!....
 
I simply frigging hate this album!!!!
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
(NOT!!!)Beer
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Abraxas Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 08 Sep 2012 at 7:54pm
Music, perfect MUSIC. 
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote dreadpirateroberts Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 09 Sep 2012 at 1:00am
Love the contrast between the cooler sounds of Miles & Bill contrasting with the warm tones of the saxes. Stunning album, hard to overlook it in terms of its influence, popularity and quality. Awesome stuff
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote darkshade Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 09 Sep 2012 at 11:27am
What's amazing to me, is that the album before it "Milestones" is the opposite in terms of mood, but features the same lineup (well almost, with Wynton Kelly more prominent on piano). Not to mention the music is fast and frenetic, whereas KOB is moody, a little laid back, and, well, cool.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote dreadpirateroberts Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 10 Sep 2012 at 6:20am
^ that's fantastic, I hadn't actually twigged to that!  I wonder how much of that change can be attributed to Evans' influence or Miles conscious decision to work in a more modal frame
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