Jazz-Rock

This one is for you, dear jazz-rock experts:

 

I'm happy to announce that I've recently bought the impressive Venegoni & Co.'s  "Live...Somewhere in the Seventies" (live recordings from 1979). Venegoni & Co is the band founded by Gigi Venegoni (ex Arti & Mestieri)

Live...somewhere in the seventies... - CD

 

A great collection of jazz-rock live performances! A wonderful experience. The sound's quality is excellent and the general mood is powerful! One of the best I ever listened to! Highly recommended.

 

Venegoni & Co deserve to be included in this site asap!!!

 

Coincidentally just before Christmas the Fusenet website/discussion group were flagging up Ain Soph as a band to check out - but on my personal checking out with my local prog specialist, I was asked which of the 2 or 3 Ain Sophs did I want. It seemed records/CDs of the jazz rocky one were  less common than the others.... So beware, ask before you buy

 

'Grudge' is probably the wrong word - why did Davis employ so many white musicians in his last 30 years? Why did Miles want the selling power and audiences that bought and attended the new fangled rock music of the late 60's (predominantly white)? Davis was a middle class black American , son of doctors, good education, who because of where his music took him, discovered the worst of racial prejudice. And read and understand the sociology of drug-taking and jazz, e.g. through the autobiography of Mez Mezrow in Really The Blues - - hard drugs when first taken by jazz artists were seen as doors of perception (to borrow author Audous Huxley's terminology), taking them to new compositional and musical heights. Maybe, until they became badly hooked, there was slight truth in this - but once hooked by the man, total f**k-up. At least some of the hard drug users escaped H or whatever. Booze and its addiction for example carried away Bix Beiderbeck at the end of the 20's.

 

 

Not according to Paul Stump's Mclaughlin biography, Go Ahead John - happen to be reading it at the moment, along with Michael Palin's Diaries and Richard Dawkins God Delusion. McLaughlin indulged well in London during the 60's on what ever was going, eventually  discovering one form of the opiate of the people towards the end of that decade and presumably avoiding dodgy chemicals since.

 

The best jazz historians will remind that Canterbury - particuarly though Soft Machine - were most influential on the European jazz rock scene, and this happening when jazz rock was just moving above ground in the States. Interesting to read in the Robert Wyatt biography that the American jazz scene were enthusiastic about the Softs too- apparently Miles Davis attended gigs, Ornette Coleman hosted parties for the band (and this before 1970) - I'm damned sure some of Chick Corea's earlier electric playing was influenced by Ratledge. On a  very intriguing (repro of a) postcard home,  Wyatt reports he sat in which Chicago (in Chicago).

 'Toto' spinoff with Steve Lukather on guitar & vocals.

"El Grupo's first Live record was released as a special limited edition digipack of 1,000 copies and is sold exclusively at El Grupo's European shows in November 2005 ≈ 50 pieces per show, one per person.

The album features 5 very extended tracks of classic rock and fusion tunes that allow all band members to stretch out and show their unique talent. The live recording captures all the fun and looseness on stage and makes the listener feel the great vibes of the shows. "

El Grupo:

Steve Lukather - Guitar & Vocals
Joey Heredia - Drums, Percussion & Chant
Steve Weingart - Keyboards
Oskar Cartaya - Bass

1. Dismemberment (15:21)
Lenny Castro/David Garfield

2. I'm Buzzed (16:52)
Michael Landau

3. Birdland (9:45)
J. Zawinul

4. Little Wing (10:14)
Jimi Hendrix

5. Led Boots (13:28)
Max Middleton

 

I will  give it a listen!