Whats on your turntable tonight?

This is from last night’s listening session:

Shadowfax - Watercourse Way / most people think of this band as a ’new age’ band, but their 1st release was pure intense prog. Not new age at all. They only went in the new age direction when they signed with Windham Hill records.

John Abercrombie - Timeless / killer fusion with Jack DeJonnette on drums, and Jan Hammer on keys.

And finally

Charles Wuorinen - Chamber Concerto For Cello & 10 Players (1963) / Ringing Changes, For Percussion Ensemble (1970) / both very uncompromising and ’thorny’ sounding pieces, but great! Not only that, this recording has large, natural sounding, well layered soundstage, with great imaging within the soundstage.

And finally, I listened to, Arti e Mestieri - Tilt.

This is a near brilliant piece of 70’s Italian prog! This one kind of straddles the line between prog and fusion. With terrifying chops by all members.

For anyone unfamiliar, in the 70’s (and still to this day), Italy produced some of the best prog ever. Many of the best bands (PFM, Banco, Le Orme, Museo Rosenbach, Area, Il Balleto di Bronzo), made prog as good as most of the big British bands (Yes, King Crimson, Genesis, etc), but with their own Italian spin on it. This one is maybe just a tiny bit out of the 1st tier of Italian prog, but not by much.

After the above mentioned Chamber Concerto, I listened to one of the great, lesser known ECM recordings.

From 1976, Art Lande - Rubisa Patrol. With the great, Mark Isham on trumpet.

Lande has some great feel on piano, but loads of chops too.

This was from last night’s listening session. As with almost all of my listening sessions, they are a combination of vinyl and digital.

Charles Wourinen (one of my top 5 composers)- Chamber Concerto for Cello and 10 Players, and Ringing Changes for Percussion Ensemble

I tend to listen mostly to the Cello Chamber Concerto more than the percussion piece, but if anyone really wants to evaluate the soundstage and imaging of their system, it would be hard to find a better piece than Ringing Changes. It produces a well defined soundstage, with extremely well defined musicians within it. Very natural sounding.

Musically, it’s pretty angular, thorny sounding, so YMMV.