Log #80 - Mister Magic

Record of the week is soul jazz masterpiece Mister Magic from Grover Washington Jr. which I first heard as a student in the 80s. It's smooth, it's funky and it's cool (like the cover). Released in 1975 it was Grover's 4th album and his first commercial success.

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1. Midlake - The Courage of Others

2. Fleet Foxes - Helplessness Blues

3. Amadou and Mariam - Dimanch a Bamako

4. Grover Washington Jr. - Mister Magic

5. Prem Joshua - Yatri

6. Various - The Karma Collection CD1

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Mister Magic opens with the experimental Earth Tones (12:20) which is a Miles Davis like jazz fusion piece by arranger and keyboardist Bob James. Book-ended by Washington's soprano sax riff the mid section goes free form underpinned by Harvey Mason's hi-hat emphasized drums. Passion Flower (5:32) is an arrangement of a smooth melodic piece from the 40s, backed by rich strings. Title track Mister Magic (9:00) is punchy and funky with a circular Eric Gale guitar riff. Amy Winehouse covered the track on her Frank album. This super tight album ends with Black Forest (6:06) - a big band arranged chunky piece of JBs like funk.

A very satisfying album that tends to be liked by anyone I play it to. Hashtag What'sNotToLike?

#WhatABand Grover grooves through Mister Magic

Speaking of cool the Grover Washington album merges seamlessly into the equally cool Prem Joshua album.  Prem is a German multi-instrumentalist majoring on Indian sitar. Beautifully produced and packaged Yatri is a gorgeous world fusion piece of authentic ethnic sounds over understated modern beats.

      

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Log #31 - David Sylvian - From Pop Star to Serious Musician

David Sylvian found fame as the flamboyant front man of pop group Japan who were actually active a lot earlier than I'd assumed. They were formed as far back as 1974 ie. in the hey day of prog and glam. This surprised me as I'd always thought of them as an 80s pop band of the Duran Duran, Flock of Seagulls, Spandau Ballet type, rather than contemporaries of Roxy Music and David Bowie. To be fair they didn't really emerge proper until the early 80s having adopted a new romantic style.

David Sylvian did not like to be associated with the new romantic movement which may explain the break up of the band at the peak of their success at the end of 1982, and his subsequent about turn in his solo recordings which began with Brilliant Trees in 1984. But the real eye opener for me was Secrets of The Beehive which I heard at a friend's house shortly after it's release in 1987. Frankly, it blew my mind. I thought it was superb and could not believe it was David Sylvian. I don't play it that often now but for a time it was one of my favourite albums and one of those nice surprises to share with others (I remember Talk Talk's Spirit of Eden was a similarly revered "surprise" album).

Continuing his bee obsession Dead Bees on a Cake came 12 years later. It's a lengthy album with 14 mostly substantial tracks touching on jazz, rock, blues and world music - beautifully produced and performed by Sylvian's usual plethora of top notch session musicians who included Talvin Singh, Marc Ribot, Bill Frisell and Ryuichi Sakamoto on this one.

David Sylvian through the ages

1. Prem Joshua - Yatri
2. Iron and Wine - Kiss Each Other Clean
3. David Sylvian - Dead Bees on a Cake
4. Van Morrison - Enlightenment
5. Luke Vibert - YosepH
6. Luke Vibert - Stop The Panic

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