From the outer worlds of rock & roll, jazz, and funk, I have a couple 70’s-era fusion gems to tell you about that German label, Most Promising Sound has once again made available to the ears of all of us musical adventurers. One is a 1972 Don “Sugar Cane” Harris album called Sugar Cane’s Got The Blues and the other is a 1974 Pork Pie album called Transitory.
Some of you might know Don “Sugar Cane” Harris from his electric violin performances on Frank Zappa & The Mothers' albums Hot Rats, Burnt Weeny Sandwich, and Weasels Ripped My Flesh. One of the most notable of his Zappa album performances is his lead vocal and blues violin solo on the Little Richard cover, “Directly From My Heart To You”. Seek it out if you haven’t heard it! Unfortunately, Harris passed away almost ten years ago in 1999, but Most Promising Sound has done us the favor of reviving some of the best music that Harris ever recorded, in the smokin’ live document, Sugar Cane’s Got The Blues.
Harris’ band displays some serious talent and includes ex-Soft Machine drummer, Robert Wyatt and the amazing German jazz fusion pianist, Wolfgang Dauner. The band starts cooking with steam from the get-go and jam with fantastically-controlled frenzy over the next nine minutes of “Liz Pineapple Wonderful”. The next three tracks slow the pace a bit and is capped off with a smokin’ blues tune (“Where’s My Sunshine”), displaying the depth and beauty of Sugar Cane’s playing, and furthering the case that ‘Jimi Hendrix of violin’ was a pretty accurate moniker for Don “Sugar Cane” Harris… and I’m sure Jimi would’ve been flattered.
The other fantastic fusion release, Transitory, is by Jasper van’t Hof’s band, Pork Pie. Van’t Hof is a Dutch jazz pianist and keyboard player, and is one of the most active jazz players on the European jazz scene. In 1974, Van’t Hof assembled an amazing collective of musicians including guitarist Philip Catherine (who was named ‘Young Django’ by Charlie Mingus), saxophonist Charlie Mariano (who’s also played with Mingus as well as Embryo), and drummer Aldo Romano and bassist Jean-Francois Jenny Clark (who provided Don Cherry’s rhythm section early in their careers).
The sheer talent and musicianship of these players is evident and, like the Sugar Cane album, the band wastes no time ripping into a serious groove with the first song, “Epoch”. The album continues on to break down the barriers between rock, electronic, psychedelia, and free jazz elements, and never relents. This may all sound like it's a difficult listen, but it is far from it. Pork Pie manages to combine all of these far out elements with a repeat listenability.
In fact, both of these excellent 70’s fusion re-releases manage to pull off that difficult task. And the sound on these remasters is perfect. Most Promising Sound’s motto is “to make music lovers happy’ and they have done just that to this music lover. I will be sure to keep an eye on the interesting material that they choose to release next… it’s sure to be 'most promising'!
Article comments