Gino Vannelli

This guy is superb, writing Jazz Pop / Rock with his brother Joe (keyboards) and hiring a handfull of different jazz musicians every album. Superb drumming, walking basslines, jazz-like solos, modern harmony... It's all there. Yes, he has released some straight edge cheesey pop, but take a listen to his earlier stuff:


Guitar solo... WOW




A beast of an organ solo, and that walking bassline is terrific


Instrumental courtesy of Joe Vannelli under the name Gino. I think Gino plays a bit of synth in this though too? Anyway, terrific track, could easily qualify as jazz fusion.

I think this is a good addition.  Strong jazz influence running all through his material and in the mid 70s he was HUGE in north Texas.

Sean Trane wrote: He's in already! That was quick!   I must that although half-Canadian, I didn't have that good an opinion of his works.   I always categorized him in AOR more than anything else   Indeed with albums like Powerful people , Crazy life, Brother to Brother  and Storm (or mostly what i heard of those through FM/AOR stations) certainly didn't drum up warm welcomes with us teenagers,alongside Steely dan, later doobies, APP and other stuff in that alley... Acvtually he was sort of the but of jokes of some kids with his wide-open shirts with hairy chest, âssing for a disco boy....   I did re-listen by "luck" at his second album two or three years back  and stuff like People Gotta Move brought back some memories of school bus rants about the sh*tty taste of the bus driver./ anyway, I'll maybe reassess his albums if I find time. Which 90's album should I listen to??   anyway, until fairly recently , I never even found out that he'd had a "second career" around the 90's and that he's still around

Yonder Tree is pretty good, although nothing like his 70s stuff.

His best album (or my favourite) has to be The Gist of the Gemini. Check it out if you haven't! Great instrumental work.

I agree that his stuff was, overall, very AOR but it wasn't him that me and my musician friends were interested in, it was the fabulous keyboard sounds that his brother Joe and Richard Baker were getting without any guitars being involved at all (bass or otherwise).  Gino's stage antics were a bit "much" but the music was good enough to tolerate and look beyond his silly macho posturing.  I think "Storm at Sunup" was GV and his band's best album but I lost interest in them after they made "Brother to Brother" with a revamped lineup.  For a few short years, though, they were impressive and influenced a lot of keyboard players.