When Frank Wyatt was diagnosed with cancer, it led him to think he ought to release at least one more album, and for the assistance, he turned back to his old friends. This means that on this album we have everyone who played on Happy The Man’s debut from 1977 (plus everyone who was there at the time of their last release ‘The Muse Awakens’ in 2004), every player from Pedal Giant Animals’ 2006 album plus everyone from Oblivion Sun’s 2013 release ‘The High Places’ as well as a few other guests. The album took far longer to come together than was originally expected, as not only did many people live in different states, but Wyatt had to keep undergoing treatments. However, as Wyatt puts it “The album’s concept turned into a sort of ‘goodbye, or one last swing at it’ as I had been diagnosed with the big ‘C’ and told I was short on time. I had no idea the project would take so long! I’m five years out of warranty now and still kicking. Perhaps the project has been what’s kept me going; I’ve been too stubborn to give up on completing it. I plan more work already… music is great medicine.”
Happy The Man was undoubtedly one of the most important progressive bands to come out of America in the late Seventies, mixing influences from the likes of Genesis, Yes and Gentle Giant with more jazzlike tendencies and often producing albums which were mostly instrumental. Needless to say, given how virtually everyone on this recording has been involved with keyboard player Frank Wyatt and guitarist/vocalist Stan Whitaker during their long musical journey together, one would expect this to be somewhat similar, and it is. I still remember hearing Happy The Man’s ‘The Muse Awakens’ where I said “it is hard to believe that this is prog from America as it definitely belongs at home in the UK – with the way that it switches both tempo and melody reminiscent of a style of prog music that virtually no-one plays anymore. Mostly it is relaxing, almost soothing, but at no time it can be said to be simple background music as there is just so much going on.” I could have left it there without the speech marks as all those words apply to this album as well. There are some pieces where we have some wonderful piano and keyboard interplay, others where there is a great deal of complexity, others where there are lush vocals, and others where there is none.
This is a soaring, wonderful, glorious progressive rock that embraces the genre without trying to become anything it is not. This is not neo-prog, or prog metal or any of those sorts of things, but rather American polished progressive rock which looked firmly across the Atlantic for influences more than 40 years ago and is still doing so today. This album is superb in every way and should be in every progressive rock lover’s collection. 8/10 Kev Rowland
I have been writing gig reviews for more than 30 years, but always from notes taken at the time which act as memory joggers, so this is the first time I have ever written a full review while the concert itself is still taking place! With the current restrictions in New Zealand, and in many other places in the world, live music has stopped overnight as gatherings are not allowed. Originally on this date South African-born Lee Martin was supposed to be playing a gig with her full band, and as that wasn’t possible, she decided instead to host a gig from her house. It felt intimate, and very special, yet she also ensured the sound was going to be as good as possible, utilising her normal PA and mix so her vocals had just a touch of reverb and bounce. I soon realised I needed to find some way of capturing what was taking place so out came the laptop and I am watching the gig on my TV, writing the review as it goes.
By the time it started there were already more people viewing than she expected to attend, and with the help of a glass of red wine she took us on a journey. We started with “Thinking About You”, the lead track from her ‘Lost Girl’ EP which came out last year, which really set the mood. This was followed by a new song, “When I Was Still At Home”, which talks about her emotions at being away from her family as she now lives in New Zealand, and about a lucid dream where she thought her recently departed grandfather was in her room talking to her. As with all her songs, there is a backstory and she made a point of telling us these which adds so much to the experience.
“What If I Die?” is about living your life to the fullest, and not having regrets. Lee has always wanted to see Van Gogh’s “Starry Night” and visiting Italy and the Greek Islands, and she started to think she might never achieve those things if she didn’t organise them. So earlier this year she actually booked the flights to make her dream a reality. Of course, they have now been cancelled but at least she tried 😊. Lee has a very warm and welcoming style, and her friendly and engaging manner combined with her clear and strong vocals means she is a singer-songwriter who the audience warm to immediately, even if they don’t know the material.
“That’s How It Goes” is far slower, sung in a lower register, much darker and I was immediately reminded of Johnny Cash. “Brave Train” is more upbeat, all about doing the right thing when the time comes. Given the only feedback she was getting were from comments on the Facebook page, Lee was performing as if there was a live crowd in front of her, interacting with comments between songs but without losing the flow of the performance itself. It really did feel like Lee was performing just for each viewer, but without any of the awkwardness which comes when you are sat in the front row of a plane and unable to see the safety video to the stewardess does a presentation just for those three people.
“Whiskey and Red Wine” is another song from the EP and is about a very personal experience from Lee when she was attacked at night and is how she got through it with the love and support of her family and friends. Another slowie, quite country in many ways, it moves around in tempo and feel, as Lee shares yet more emotion. “I Miss You” is her latest song, literally only finished the day of the gig. This is quite different in approach, almost a rock number played on acoustic, with vocals quite breathy and quiet, packed with emotion, just coming to the fore during the bridge and chorus.
“I Can’t Wait Forever” apparently works better when everyone is drinking and swaying, and works much better with a full band, and is another Cash-inspired slow number full of emotion and heartbreak. This was one of the highlights for me, as it really takes the listener into different world, where the guitar and voice, especially the voice, are all that matters.
“Finally Going My Way” is about balancing dreams and personal life, and how friends can be lost while dreams are pursued. Another slower number, with Lee singing in a lower register, she somehow comes across with an American accent, which given she is from SA is not what one expects. But this number soon wakes up, and we get some Joplin-style power. Americana rock, all performed with just vocals and an acoustic. “Kiss My Lips” was originally supposed to be the final number and is a love song as one would expect from the title, but again feels very personal and that Lee is singing to each individual. She then started taking requests, and first up was “Head On My Shoulders”, one of her older numbers and one I hadn’t heard before. This one is upbeat and bouncy, and given she hadn’t played it in years and certainly not rehearsed, sounded mighty fine indeed.
“Lost Girl” was the title of last year’s excellent six-track EP and is probably the slowest number performed tonight. Packed full of emotion it contains many long-held notes and there is no room to hide if a singer can’t maintain pitch, but there is never a problem for Lee who really shines when she gives her voice the room to swell. “I Know You’re Sleeping” is another old one I hadn’t previously come across, a love song written when she was living in New York and her boyfriend was back in South Arica. There were loads of comments coming into the thread, with more and more requests, so Lee kept extending the set, with the next song being “Thunderstorm”, one which Lee wasn’t convinced she would be able to remember more than a verse and chorus as it was so long since she had played it. All about finding the right man to dance with her in the rain, it is more upbeat than many, and yet again once she got into it the memories kicked in and she made it all the way through with no issues. We even got a snippet of a song she wrote in Afrikaans which originally appeared on the Southern Soul ‘Package’ album in 2006, before finally getting to the end of the set with “A Way Out Of Here”, again from the ‘Lost Girl’ EP.
There were many requests for “Hallelujah”, a song she plays in her covers sets, which she very much makes her own with sumptuous vocals. She finally finished what was supposed to be an hour-long set, with a repeat of her very latest song, “I Miss You”. 100 minutes just swept past, and lock down all of a sudden didn’t seem so bad
When I hear Norwegian band Magic Pie’s debut back in 2005 I was just blown away and moaned it had kept many other albums away from my CD player as I couldn’t bring myself to take it off! They haven’t been the most prolific since then, but they are now back with their fifth album, with the same line-up as the last album, 2015’s ‘King For A Day’. With only drummer Jan Johannessen not contributing vocals in the six-man line-up, and both Eirikur Hauksson and Eirik Hanssen not playing instruments, one might think this is a very vocal-heavy band. That is true in many respects, but this is a symphonic progressive rock band with complex arrangements who are never afraid to crank it up and blast through, just with wonderful harmonies over the top!
Inspired by classic Seventies bands, this is a rich feast for progheads as opposed to a simple single course. It twists, it turns, it moves and grooves is easy to get inside yet at the same time there is a great deal going on. Just the opening power chord followed by complex keyboard runs of “The Man Who Had It All” had me invested in the album from the very start, smiling, waiting to see what was going to come next. That it slowed down, sped up, moved between piano and keyboards before the vocals started, just made me smile that much more. From there on it was heading down and stay focused as I just didn’t want to miss anything that was going on. Gentle Giant is just one of the influences on display, yet often in a more commercial and rock-based manner.
“The Hedonist” is the final track on offer, a simple ditty of some 22 minutes in length which allows the band to really stretch their wings and show what they can achieve in an epic. Restraint is the order of the day, as the band takes time to really get going, but when they do, they show they have been paying attention to the likes of Spock’s Beard and keep the interest going throughout. Somehow I missed the last two Magic Pie albums, I won’t be making that mistake again. Superb.
Bassist/songwriter/producer Bob Madsen (41Point9 etc.) was wondering what would happen if you attempted to mix Disturbed with Level 42 style bass with vocals, so brought together some friends to attempt to make that a reality. Here he has been joined by guitarists Chad Quist (41POINT9, Heart by Heart, etc.) and Billy Connolly (Pushing the Sun, Alchemy of Sound), along with singer Randy Scoles (Ronnie Montrose Band, Rogue), and drummer Gregg Bissonette (David Lee Roth Band, Ringo Starr’s Allstars). The result is three songs that are highly polished and sound as if they have been produced by a band who have been together for years instead of just a small amount of time. There are huge swathes of the title cut where it is just Scoles and some keyboards, so when the rest of the band crunch in it makes quite an impact.
What immediately strikes the listener from the first note to the very last is just how much fun this is, and when the “Life In The Middle Eight” just stops as it does, I found I was actually disappointed! But at least that allows us to move into the much heavier “Victims and Villains” where one can really hear Madsen’s dream being brought to life, with Scoles doing his best to show off his Hagar-style vocals (no wonder he has been playing with Ronnie, would love to hear him do “Space Station No. 5”. The only thing wrong with this EP is that it is way too short! Bring on the album guys, we need to hear more, much more.
Jelena is a jazz singer from Serbia, who since 2002 has been a full-time lecturer at the music school ‘’ Kornelije Stankovic’’ in Belgrade. She has studied in Austria and was a lecturer at music colleges in Cape Town where she lived for four years, so she has quite a worldview in many ways. If I had been playing this without knowing where the musician originated from, I would have guessed that she was American with Eastern European roots as her approach is very Western in style, and when singing she has no accent whatsoever. On the album, there are six originals, plus four others where she provided the lyrics, and she also was responsible for all the arrangements. Given she doesn’t play an instrument on ‘Heartbeat’ that is somewhat surprising given that it is normally the lead instrumentalist (in this case it would be Vasil Hadzimanov (Piano, Rhodes)) who is responsible for that element. The rest of the band comprises bassist Milan Nikolic, drummer Vladimir Kostadinovic, tenor-saxophonist Rastko Obradovic and, on three numbers, trumpeter Strahinja Banovic. Also featured are vibraphonist Milos Branisavljevic and guitarist Branko Trijic.
Here is a singer who is incredible confidence in her abilities, and is able to handle multiple styles. On “Paladin”, it is just her and vibrant bright piano, and her sultry style is a perfect contrast to the accompaniment, while at others she is the one who is bright and flowing. We are treated to some swing, some bop, even some scat, and it is hard to realize that this is a debut album, as it is full of confidence and punch. There is even some throat singing near the end of “The Countless Stars” which sounds absolutely perfect in the context, but I am sure it is the first time I have ever come across it in jazz! This certainly doesn’t sound as if it was recorded in Serbia, as this feels like a warm New York jazz album, and it is just the photos and few folky elements which make one think it may not be from there after all.
A great voice, interesting and different arrangements, this is a jazz album to be discovered, savored and enjoyed.
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