Mountain Made

Willie Hugh Nelson (born April 29, 1933) is an American musician, singer, songwriter, author, poet, actor, and activist. The critical success of the album Shotgun Willie (1973), combined with the critical and commercial success of Red Headed Stranger (1975) and Stardust (1978), made Nelson one of the most recognized artists in country music. He was one of the main figures of outlaw country, a subgenre of country music that developed in the late 1960s as a reaction to the conservative restrictions of the Nashville sound.

A fabulous title track and a unique place in jazz history. These are just two of the elements which make “Mountain Dance” easily one of the most significant of Dave Grusin's musical offerings. Although originally recorded for JVC in 1979, this was the first Dave Grusin album to be released on his own label, Arista-GRP, in 1980. It not only represented the beginning of the digital age in jazz, but brought forth a piece which could easily be regarded as the Grusin signature tune, the always dazzling and exhilarating “Mountain Dance.” Starting off with the bouncy and infectious charmer, Dave Grusin's own “Rag Bag,” we move on to the mellow “Friends and Strangers,” a real anthem of the smooth side of the GRP sound (concert version to be heard on "GRP All-Stars Live In Japan").

Continuing the twisted pop explorations of Here Come the Warm Jets, Eno's sophomore album, Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy), is more subdued and cerebral, and a bit darker when he does cut loose, but it's no less thrilling once the music reveals itself. It's a loose concept album - often inscrutable, but still playful - about espionage, the Chinese Communist revolution, and dream associations, with the more stream-of-consciousness lyrics beginning to resemble the sorts of random connections made in dream states. Eno's richly layered arrangements juxtapose very different treated sounds, yet they blend and flow together perfectly, hinting at the directions his work would soon take with the seamless sound paintings of Another Green World…