Originally a Japan-only release, this hard-to-find-even-on-the-internet recording from '70 is one of the nicest discoveries I've made this year. Vitous is accompanied by Joe Zawinul (yay!) and Billy Cobham (double yay!!), with an almost imperceptible (so no yay!) John McLaughlin passing through on one track. Apart from this wasted opportunity, we have a gorgeous, cool, meditative suite that avoids both free jazz atonality and jazz standard cheese (triple yay!!!). If you, like, dig this kinda Davis [Miles - Ed.] kinda Weather Report sound, you'll tap yer sandal to this one. Mucho bowed bass, to which I yam attractivated, and Billy working his way round the kit like only he can. Oh, and a fantastic cover. Perfectamundo!
This post sponsored by Jazz Cheze For Jesus, a non-profit organisation. My thanks to Mibsy Finklegarten!
Here it be:
ReplyDeletehttps://workupload.com/file/UfdU3gtsRax
Yes very nice. I collected a lot of Vitous lps, and McLaughlin and related stuff. A journey of over 50 years now. Those 2 especially are top of my list, for their sound and ways of composing, as it changed over the years. Saw McL live playing the Double Rainbow (w Ponty and Michael Walden) in 73, then again with the One Truth Band in 79.
ReplyDeleteApart from the acoustic "sides" (man), I find anything he did post Maha Orc (up to Emerald) hard work. Something to do with losing his ear for tone (some of the most styrofoam electric playing I ever heard), and surrounding himself with less-than-superb and unchallenging musicians - Gary Husband being the worst.
DeleteCan't help but concur. I hold everything up through Emerald in high regard. Never could explain the loss of focus and direction to my ears after that. Shakti had its moments early on, only to dissolve into world music drek. Just my take. In any case, whatever the opinion of any given period of his career, the man’s talent is beyond dispute me thinks.
DeleteEmerald seems to me to be strangely shunted to one side in his œuvre [Fr. egg - Ed.] yet I wonder if it had been the first album what the reaction would have been to replacing Jean-Luc Ponty with Him Out Of Flock, Ralphe Armstrong with Some Scots Dullard, and Gayle Moran with a gnome from the fjörds. Billy Cobham woould have been accepted, even after Michael Walden - but the others?
DeleteNice one Mibsy! I also have his "Green Line" from '70 if anyone wants it
ReplyDeleteultra-fab find. mucho thanx, Mr.3
ReplyDeleteMiroslav’s ‘Purple’ is indeed freaking cool!
ReplyDeleteI always have to laugh at the way Miroslav Vitous and Joe Zawinul talk about each other. “Miroslav can’t play Funk.”
“Joe doesn’t have the technical ability to play what I compose.”
Both claim to be the first to start ‘Weather Report’ with Wayne Shorter. It’s all too funny!
Here’s ‘Infinite Search’ from 1969
The “sidemen” are John McLaughlin, Herbie Hancock, Joe Henderson, and Jack DeJohnette. This was produced by flautist Herbie Mann.
https://workupload.com/file/DYkdMbrVaUz
‘Journey's End’ from 1982
With John Taylor on piano, John Surman on sax (soprano and baritone) and bass clarinet, and Jon Christensen on drums.
Not unlike ‘Purple’ this was “unavailable in the U.S.A.”, and yet it was available wherever Jazz records and tapes were sold. Go figure…
https://workupload.com/file/yAN3bHWbHCR
‘Universal Syncopations’ from 2003
With John McLaughlin, Jan Garbarek, Chick Corea, and Jack DeJohnette. Shame Miroslav can’t get better backing musicians.
https://workupload.com/file/jvY9jqHgcNb
Speaking of Miroslav, Zawinul and the rest of the Mickey Mouse Club, here’s Weather Report’s ‘Live in Tokyo’ from 1972. This is another “rare Japan only” release, that was also available wherever Jazz records and tapes were sold back in ’72. This is one of the finest examples of live Fusion ever recorded.
https://workupload.com/file/NBTv62zaEhh
Thanks for these timely and provocative adhesions, Babs!
Delete(For those with a prurient interest in Bab's music room, Spielberg used it for the last scene of Raiders Of The Lost Ark.)
I like all Miroslav's work and even collected the early Herbie Mann albums he was on. I entered the matrix with WR's 'Body Electric' in '74, which is still one of my faves, and yes side 2 has excerpts from the 72 Live in Tokyo set. But get this, when Miroslav's 'Universal Shepherd' came out (with a cover worthy of our host!) I was just in the mood for its cosmic disco grooves and played it constantly, still get a buzz from it, partly due to nostalgia for those days. Ah, youth. Call me weird, I don't care.
DeleteOops, Magical Shepherd, Cosmic Goatherd, whatever.
DeleteHigh on a hill was a cosmic goatherd ...
DeleteInfinate Search is a winner. Whadda lineup! As for the later releases, trying to change my opinion Babs? You do have some valid weapons to make the point. Thanks for the dopeslap and for the chance to revisit these.
ReplyDeletebtw, next time Spiel drops by, tell 'im we all say 'hey.'
DeleteMiroslav is also responsible for one of the first and best known orchestral sample libraries. He wanted one for use in his own compositions didn't like the products that were available, so in the early 1990s he created his own.
ReplyDeleteHe hired the musicians of the Czech Philharmonic to take their regular seats at the Dvorak Symphony Hall in Prague, and recorded them individually playing various notes. A key aspect was that the recording microphones were kept in the same places throughout the sessions so that each instrument came out in its proper place in the stereo field and with the natural sound of the symphony hall.
I don't know the story of what led to it being released commercially (perhaps he wanted to recoup the costs), but these recordings were made available for musicians to use with the original hardware sampler keyboards (Akai, Emu). About 10 years later they were re-released as a software virtual instrument, which has since been expanded and updated.
So now it's 30 years old, and there are countless orchestral libraries out there for composers. But his is still a popular choice largely because it has the warmth of a natural live orchestra, partly because it's kind of legendary as one of the original OGs of sampler libraries, but I'd say mostly because it's so much cheaper now than it ever was before.
As an example, the company that now markets the software instrument version has a promotion going on where if you buy a $130 mini-keyboard controller, you get a basic version of the Miroslav orchestral recordings plus basic versions of four other virtual instruments for free as your "starter" instrument collection to play on your new keyb oard toy.
That blows my mind. I paid $800 for my starter keyboard toy (a Yamaha DX21) in 1985. It came with 128 sounds - grand total. It wouldn't have even been capable of loading or playing the Miroslav library.
Thanks for the low-down. I had heard Miroslav was a trailblazer in this field but didn't know the details. I gather he was a powerful swimmer too, on the margins of the CSSR's Olympic team in his teens.
DeleteI had a Casio VL Tone. Couldn't get my head around the permutations and complexities (and that was just the calculator feature).
DeleteI'm told there were sports-minded types who never forgave him forsaking noble athletic pursuits for music. Rekkin' he'd do well in any area he chose.
ReplyDeleteI'm excited. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteI like Purple more than the better-known (and higher rated) Infinite Search.
Delete