Mahavishnu Orchestra

If ever a title was in need of the wider exposure it eluded when first released, it's Polish violinist Zbigniew Seifert's unparalleled Man of the Light—finally seeing the light of day thanks to Promising Music's ongoing series of remastered re-releases from the German MPS label of the 1960s and '70s.

He’s performed with the Pat Metheny Group, the Mahavishnu Orchestra, the Gil Evans Orchestra, the Al DiMeola Project and a hundred other giants of Jazz and contemporary music. He appears on over 300 CDs, including 4 Grammy winners. He’s also a longtime and cherished friend of TrueFire. So, when Danny Gottlieb called to ask whether we’d be interested in filming a jazz trio recording session featuring himself on drums and two of his best friends, Barry Greene on guitar and Dennis Marks on upright and electric bass, we jumped at the opportunity, no questions asked.

French band formed in the 70's by guitarist and multi-instrumentalist Richard Pinhas (sometimes called the 'French Fripp'), synth player Patrick Gauthier, drummer François Auger and scores of other musicians dropping in and out over the course of six albums between '74 and '79. Their sound could best be described as a mixture of Frippian guitars with the cold, icy prog of KING CRIMSON and the hypnotic drones of CAN over a harsh, aggressive electronic background…

This is one of Heldon's most impressive recordings. It offers the continuity of a group sound throughout, with Pinhas' keyboards and guitars supported by Francois Auger playing drums and percussion on most tracks, and additional assistance from Patrick Gauthier on moog synthesizers and either Didier Batard or Janick Top on bass. Stylistically, it's a great leap forward from previous Heldon releases, and much closer to the fusion jazz of Mahavishnu Orchestra, than to conventional psychedelic or prog-rock. The five pieces (one in both a live and a studio version) have no real melodies or themes; rather, they use simple patterns and chord sequences as guidelines, and let the musicians improvise around them…

Gil Evans - There Comes a Time (1975) {2014 Japan Jazz Collection 1000 Columbia-RCA Series SICP 4045}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 492 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 186 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (jpg) -> 12 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1975, 2014 RCA / Sony Music Japan | SICP 4045
Jazz / Post Bop / Progressive Jazz / Modern Post-Bebop / Experimental Big Band

Reissue with latest remastering. Comes with liner notes. There Comes a Time is an album by the jazz composer, arranger, conductor and pianist Gil Evans, recorded in 1975 and performed by Evans with an orchestra featuring David Sanborn, Howard Johnson, Billy Harper. So, in a rather silent way, we've got a FULL version of this album. There Comes A Time comes not only with a 3 bonus tracks (that are marked jsut modestly somewhere on the obi), but with a full, over 19-minutes version of "The Meaning Of The Blues", that originaly take not even 6 minutes. Absolute must for a fusion fan, great guitar solos by Kawasaki ("There Comes A Time" sounds like a hell of tribute to Mahavishnu Orchestra) and horns.

Essential: a masterpiece of progressive rock music
There’s no question that Billy Cobham is one of the most talented and influencial drummers on the planet. I had high hopes going into this one that it would be another “Birds Of Fire” shred-fest.

Norwegian violinist Ola Kvernberg began classical studies as a six-year-old, but became strongly interested in jazz by the age of 16. He displayed an affinity for acoustic Continental jazz stylings prior to beginning jazz studies at the Trondheim Musikkonservatorium in 2001, collaborating (at age 18) with Hot Club de Norvège guitarist Jimmy Rosenberg. Kvernberg recorded and toured with the Hot Club for several years, and during his Musikkonservatorium years he also began issuing recordings under his own name, including an eponymous album on Hot Club Records in 2001 and the premiere album by the Ola Kvernberg Trio, 2002's Cats & Doug, also released by Hot Club.