AUDIO CLARITY Archives - Guerssen Records

Patent pending

GuerssenAdmin — Wed, 17 Mar 2021 23:00:00 +0000

Patent Pending was the first album by the Johnny Almond Music Machine and was issued on Decca’s progressive imprint Deram in 1969. The album was one of the finest jazz rock albums of the era, by a band featuring Geoff Condon (trumpet, flugel horn), Johnny Wiggins (piano, organ), Jimmy Crawford (electric guitar), Steve Hammond (guitars), Roger Sutton (bass) and future Yes member Alan White (drums). Johnny Almond first came to prominence through his work with John Mayall, Zoot Money, Alan Price and Chicken Shack, before he formed his own group in 1969. A truly original album, Patent Pending showcased Almond’s prowess as a composer and outstanding multi-instrumentalist, with him also playing organ, mellotron and vibes in addition to a variety of woodwind instruments.

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Negro è Lindo (45 rpm)

GuerssenAdmin — Sun, 12 Feb 2023 23:00:00 +0000

Negro É Lindo is the eighth album by Brazilian artist Jorge Ben, released in 1971. The title is a translation of the slogan “Black is beautiful” to Portuguese. The album has a song called “Cassius Marcelo Clay” paying homage to boxer and black activist Muhammad Ali. Rather than use overly theatrical performance to shock the audience or write songs loaded with political content, Ben became known as one of the country’s great musical alchemists, a furiously eclectic songwriter who combined elements of indigenous Brazilian music with a groove from the west coast of Africa. Never a controversial figure in the manner of the tropicalistas like Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil, Ben became one of the most respected and resilient figures in Brazilian pop.

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Ben

GuerssenAdmin — Sun, 23 Mar 2025 23:00:00 +0000

The long unavailable ninth album by Brazilian star JORGE BEN. Released in 1972, “BEN” comes from one of Jorge Ben’s most artistically important phases, the early 70s. The album has some of Ben’s most famous songs, “Taj Mahal” (plagiarized by Rod Stewart on his song “Da Ya Think I’m Sexy?”, as the British singer admitted himself in 2012), and “Fio Maravilha”, paying homage to Flamengo’s iconic football player Fio Maravilha.

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Lo Borges

GuerssenAdmin — Sun, 23 Apr 2023 22:00:00 +0000

Reminiscent of the Clube da Esquina album he made the same year with Brazilian superstar Milton Nascimento, Lô Borges’ 1972 solo debut proves that his influence on Nascimento was quite strong. The recording is texturally lush and dreamy, at times urgent and bizarre, and filled with the fantastic and intricate guitar playing one would expect of Borges after hearing his dazzling work with Nascimento. His vocal arrangements are lavish, often similar to the vocal qualities of George Harrison’s All Things Must Pass, and his instrumental arrangements are just plain confounding. Piano phrases mash in and out of control over the unorthodox yet clever progressions; polyphonic percussion interlocks with jazzed-out organ lines and thoughtful, melodic bass work. Occasionally, a string section will fall into place, fulfilling the album’s decorative quota, and the whole construction becomes watertight. It is truly stunning to pick apart the timbre of individual instruments and realize how necessary and meticulous each part is in the overall presentation. Borges is one of those arrangers who can build up a music bed with miles of depth and construct a wall of sound, yet keep the overall concept in crisp focus. No layer of the instrumentation seems to ever become obscured by another, nor does any part seem unnecessary, and so much is going on rhythmically and melodically that it demands full attention. The remarkable quality of Brazil’s musical culture to seamlessly integrate as many outside influences into one place is well represented here. Many western textures, such as soul, rock, jazz, and pop, are absorbed into the picture with fervor and grace rarely executed in the world of western music. “Não Foi Nada” illustrates this particularly well, but the melting-pot sentiment echoes through all of Borges’ performances here.

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Assorted Shrubbery

GuerssenAdmin — Mon, 19 Oct 2020 22:00:00 +0000

1969 Chicago Soulful Psych group, four white boys featuring Ron Stockert playing a powerful Hammond Organ in the vein of Vanilla Fudge. Stockert went on to play with Carl Carlton (Everlasting Love) and Rufus & Chaka Kahn.

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Stream

GuerssenAdmin — Sun, 24 Sep 2023 22:00:00 +0000

European fusion at its best ! Philip Catherine has been on the forefront of the European jazz scene since the sixties, working with the likes Chet Baker, Larry Coryell, Tom Harrell, NHOP, Stéphane Grappelli, Charles Mingus. At the age of 18 he toured Europe with Lou Bennett and in 1971 Jean-Luc Ponty asked him to join his quintet. In 1971 he made his first record under his name – Stream – with a stellar line-up comprised of Freddie Deronde (bass), Frédéric Rottier (Drums), Giggs Whigham (trombone) and master composer/piano player Marc Moulin (co-founder of Placebo and future member of Telex)

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Love Can Be Found Anywhere (45 rpm)

GuerssenAdmin — Mon, 07 Feb 2022 23:00:00 +0000

45 rpm.

On this 1968 album Collins definitely adopted the funky R&B Hammond vibe (while peppering his Texas Twang over top). There’s a sensitive homage to The Meters on the lead off track “Do the Sissy” while some other cuts have a definitive Booker vibe. An amazing R&B/soul combination while keep on hold the blues roots.

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Meditations

GuerssenAdmin — Mon, 13 Mar 2023 23:00:00 +0000

180-gram vinyl reissue. The epochal album released by Impulse ! in 1966 with a lineup enhanced by the addition of Rashied Ali on second drums and Pharoah Sanders on tenor sax.

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Album No 1

GuerssenAdmin — Mon, 19 Oct 2020 22:00:00 +0000

The Walker Brothers, teen scream material to rival the Beatles in ’66, split in ’67. Both Scott and John had taken lead vocal duty, but drummer Gary hadn’t sung a note, nor written anything. He decided to put a tough new group together that could rival the forward-looking, chart-busting acts of ’67, and he’d call them the Rain. Their sole album, only issued in Japan, is a psych-pop gem. A highlight is the crunching ‘Magazine Woman’, like a pumped-up ‘Revolver’ outtake, with buzzing guitars and phased effects obtained by producer fritz fryer when he jammed screwdrivers into parts of the 8-track desk.

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Françoise Hardy

GuerssenAdmin — Tue, 30 Jul 2019 22:00:00 +0000

Françoise Madeleine Hardy became an international sensation during the early 1960s through her popular releases on Disques Vogue, the French jazz label that began showcasing chanson. Born in 1944 and raised in a single-parent household in the bustling Opera district of Paris, she had little contact with her father, though his gift of a guitar when she graduated high school aided her musical development. Charles Trenet and Cora Vaucaire were early influences, along with Elvis, Cliff Richard, The Everley Brothers, Paul Anka, Marty Wilde and Connie Francis, as heard on Radio Luxembourg. Answering a newspaper ad recruiting unknown singers while a freshman at the Sorbonne, Hardy signed to Disques Vogue in late 1961, scoring an instant success with single B-side, “Tous Les Garçons Et Les Filles”, which brought her to the forefront of the Yé-yé movement, melding chanson with Anglophone rock and pop. Mon Amie La Rose, her fourth album, was released in 1964; backed by the Charles Blackwell orchestra, it contains “Dans Le Mode Entier”, which became a huge chart hit in English as “All Over The World.”

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