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Now: the Stark Reality Discover Hoagy Carmichael's Music Shop/1969
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| List Price: | £9.99 |
| Price: | £6.06 |
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
Dispatched from and sold by all your music
16 new or used available from £6.06
Average customer review:
Track Listing
- Junkman's Song
- Thirty Days Hath September
- Cooking
- Comrades
- Shooting Stars
- Rocket Ship
- Dreams
- All You Need To Make Music
- Roller Coaster Ride
- Too Much Tenderness
- Sunday\x{2019}s Song
- Say Brother
Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #110760 in Music
- Released on: 2007-10-04
- Number of discs: 1
Customer Reviews
Nothing else like it
This is a unique set based around percussionist Monty Stark's late sixties/early seventies group. His vibes take central position, surrounding by virtuoso guitar, bass, drums and horns. The approach is somewhere between jazz fusion and avant-garde. The application of effects and various types of distortion to the vibes adds a surreal element, and the long tracks give plenty of room for the musicians to improvise.
The first disk is apparently a re-issue of a children's TV show they made in which they "modernise" the work of Hoagy Carmichael. Like Sesame Street viewers, those who wathced this must have been some pretty fly kids musically, because it's cool and wierdly funky. Highlights of the first disk include "Thirty Days ave Semptember" - almost baroque in its approach - "Grandfather Clock" which bizarrely, I actually remember singing with my mates in primary school (how I knew it I've no idea) - and "Dreams" which plays out a childhood fantasy of pirates. Many of these seem to share a common melodic theme, and the Stark Reality must take some credit for highlighting the similarities - it's almost like a suite.
The second disk is just as good, but the real cream of the crop are the bonus tracks they recorded for the "Say Brother" TV show. You can see the band perform "Acting Thinking Feeling" on the Stones Throw 101 DVD, and they also record the show's theme. These two tracks really are ace, as the addition of horns to the normal band adds something truly special to the mix. Monty would be the first to say he's not a great singer, and the sound on these two tracks suggests that they were recorded in analogue from a VHS source, but the tunes are so great and funky, you won't care!
Classic Prog-Funk
Don't know how else to describe it. Highly influential, boundless music. It's way out there but it's also very funy indeed, foot tappingly so. It's funny how hearing something decades old can often sound refreshing and new...
