Here All Aalong

The calendar may have technically flipped to November, but Halloween is celebrated year round here, at Zombies In My Blog. In early October, Here Come The Mummies performed a rousing set to a packed house at the Ryman Auditorium in downtown Nashville. That night was also notable because their latest CD, All Excess, was also released then.

The 1989 album “Guasasa” is the last studio album for the Fania Six, the Fania All Stars offshoot created in 1976 by Columbia Records for marketing purposes. It features their rhythm section comprised of: Johnny Pacheco, Ray Barretto, Bobby Valentín, Roberto Roena, Nicky Marrero and virtuoso pianist Papo Lucca. Clearly intended as a Latin jazz set, this album actually bears a more dance-oriented style (as in instrumental salsa, so to speak) as opposed to this band’s earlier, bolder California Jam date. While the former date was actually a real jam session, here they work with formal charts, calculated solo spots and a less-relaxed ambience that actually belies the laid-back feel of the album.

"Give and Take" was recorded without Daevid Allen, who had fallen ill after the release of Planet Gong's LP Live Floating Anarchy in 1978. The remaining members released it under their former name, Here & Now. Honestly, it makes no difference. If you don't look at the name on the CD and put it on, you could be tricked to believe it is a genuine early Gong album. Every element that constitutes the seminal space rock outfit's sound is reproduced to perfection: soaring guitar (courtesy of Steffy Sharpstrings, who would be drafted for the 1990s Gong reunion), sweeping synthesizers, psychedelic melodies, accelerating beats, and hypnotic pulses - they're all there…