Emanuelle 1974

What do you get if you take The Nice and replace Keith Emerson for Patrick Moraz? The answer is simple Refugee, an excellent Symphonic Prog band. The previous story is well known, Keith Emerson, the heart and soul of The Nice left the band to form the first Prog supergroup ELP, so in that instant The Nice ceased to exist. They managed to survive until 1973 with to inferior releases "Elegy" and "Autumn from Spring" which mainly consist of older material and reworks of older tracks including a ghost keyboardist who was already playing in another band. But Lee Jackson and Brian Davidson wanted to revive the band, so they searched for another keyboardist who could replace Keith and they found him. The Swiss born virtuoso Patrick Moraz left Mainhorse so they recruited him and the result was incredibly solid…

This recording was the third and final matchup between guitarists Herb Ellis and Joe Pass and, unlike the first two (which were both made for Concord), this is a duo date rather than a quartet session. Pass was just beginning to gain recognition for his remarkable unaccompanied solos, but Ellis had not recorded in such a sparse setting before. They complement each other quite well on such tunes as "Love for Sale," "Seven Come Eleven," "Oh, Lady Be Good," "I've Found a New Baby," and two versions of "Cherokee."

After touring in support of Gregg Allman, only Scott Boyer and Tommy Talton remained of the original band. The release of Boyer & Talton, still using the Cowboy moniker, proves justified, as this record is a natural progression from 5'll Getcha Ten. Utilizing a crack support band made up of musicians in the Capricorn corral, Boyer & Talton deliver the goods and then some. From the opening "Patch & Pain Killer" right on through to the close, "Houston," this Cowboy outfit rock and soul with just the right amount of smooth Southern charm to grab hold of and keep your listening attention. Probably this band's finest hour.

This Atlanta concert wasn't issued in recorded form for two decades. Archival releases of this sort tend to be for collectors only, but this is a cut above the standard. The sound is very good, the band is pretty tight, and Freddie King solos with fire and sings with conviction, sticking mostly to covers of warhorses like "Dust My Broom," "Key to the Highway," and "Sweet Home Chicago." It's a better deal, in fact, than his studio albums for Shelter in the early '70s, boasting a no-frills small-combo approach that is far more suitable. As a neat bonus, it also contains two solo acoustic performances recorded at a Dallas radio station in the 1970s.

This Atlanta concert wasn't issued in recorded form for two decades. Archival releases of this sort tend to be for collectors only, but this is a cut above the standard. The sound is very good, the band is pretty tight, and Freddie King solos with fire and sings with conviction, sticking mostly to covers of warhorses like "Dust My Broom," "Key to the Highway," and "Sweet Home Chicago." It's a better deal, in fact, than his studio albums for Shelter in the early '70s, boasting a no-frills small-combo approach that is far more suitable. As a neat bonus, it also contains two solo acoustic performances recorded at a Dallas radio station in the 1970s.

This incredibly diverse collection was Chicago’s sixth studio album and their final studio-recorded double album to date. Cited for its jazz excursions, Chicago VII reached No. 1 in the US and included three stand-out hits including Searchin’ So Long, Wishing You Were Here and the first single penned by trumpeter Lee Loughnane Call on Me, which reached No. 6 in the US.

The style of this little-known Swedish quartet from the mid-70's is hard to describe as it escapes most comparisons; the closest would be Finnforest, and perhaps Danish fusion band Secret Oyster. This is fusion at its best: energetic instrumental jazz-rock featuring dual guitars, electric piano/Hammond organ, bass and drums, and stunning musicianship all around. After the release of their second album in 1976, the band, alas, split up.
Although the tracks on their first album are rather short, each one is chock full of ideas and beautiful catchy melodies based on tight, 70ish-like jazzy grooves, all charmingly and distinctively Swedish. Their second album, "Vera O'Flera", which features a guest musician on sax, is in the same vein but much more fusion oriented.

Released as another lengthy composition, Hergest Ridge was the album that followed Mike Oldfield's momentous Tubular Bells release, with many of the same instrumental elements and methods employed throughout its two sections. Because of the time of its release, Hergest Ridge was overshadowed by the effects of Oldfield's first album for Virgin, but even so he manages to invoke some interesting patches of music by using instruments like the glockenspiel, sleigh bells, the Lowrey organ, oboes, and a variety of mandolins and guitars to maintain the same type of diversity as Tubular Bells. Symphonic throughout most of the album's two parts, the highlight of Hergest Ridge is Oldfield's use of 90 multi-tracked guitars clustered together to create one of the most unique sounds ever to surface on his albums…

Even before his solo concerts became popular successes, Keith Jarrett was clearly getting a free hand from ECM founder Manfred Eicher, as this ambitious double album of classical compositions proves. In this compendium of eight works for all kinds of ensembles, the then-28-year old Jarrett adamantly refuses to be classified, flitting back and forth through the centuries from the baroque to contemporary dissonance, from exuberant counterpoint for brass quintet to homophonic writing for a string section. Though the content is uneven in quality, Jarrett is clearly sincere and skilled enough to exploit his European roots with only a handful of syncopated references to his jazz work. The strongest, most moving individual pieces are the strange, gong-haunted "In the Cave, In the Light" (the probable source of the title of Jarrett's publishing company, Cavelight)…