ENDLESS HAPPINESS Archives - Guerssen Records

Greek Variations

GuerssenAdmin — Mon, 23 Aug 2021 22:00:00 +0000

Recorded in ’69, Greek Variations & Other Aegean Exercises is irresistible on two counts. First, for its daringly conceived and brilliantly performed music, inspired by Greek folk songs and instrumental textures and deep enough to reveal all its treasures only after many repeated listenings. Second, for being recorded at the moment when the Don Rendell/Ian Carr Quintet, a major force in British straight-ahead jazz since ’62, had broken up and Carr’s equally influential jazz-rock band Nucleus was rising from the ashes.

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Brotherhood Of Breath

GuerssenAdmin — Mon, 24 Mar 2025 23:00:00 +0000

Chris McGregor’s Brotherhood of Breath is the debut album by South African pianist and composer Chris McGregor and his English-South African big band established in the late-1960s called “The Brotherhood of Breath”. The music of this album reflects the influences of both jazz and traditional African music. Indeed, it has been recognized as one of the defining recordings of ethno-jazz.

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Crisis

GuerssenAdmin — Tue, 10 Oct 2023 22:00:00 +0000

A superb and under-recognized recording, Crisis is one-third of a trilogy of extraordinary albums — the others being Broken Shadows and Science Fiction — by Coleman’s small groups of the late ’60s and early ’70s. A rendition of the piece “Broken Shadows” itself, a dirge of astonishing beauty second only to his “Lonely Woman,” opens the live performance and offers solos of deep and poignant probity from Coleman and tenorist Dewey Redman, whose earthy growled tones counterbalanced the leader’s so well for so long. Crisis somehow lacks the reputation of the revolutionary Coleman albums from early in his career, but on purely musical grounds it ranks among his most satisfying works.

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Neon

GuerssenAdmin — Mon, 06 Jan 2025 23:00:00 +0000

Cyrkle produced one album’s worth of solid garage rock, and it certainly proves that the band was an enthusiastic bunch of musicians. Much closer to late 60’s garage (proto) punk than psychedelia, the album was released in 1969.
They were best known for their 1966 song “Red Rubber Ball” (written by Paul Simon) which went to #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. The band was discovered and managed by Brian Epstein and given the unique spelling of their name by John Lennon. The group was formed by guitarists and lead singers Don Dannemann and Tom Dawes (bass guitar), who met while studying at Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania. The other members were Earl Pickens on keyboards and Marty Fried on drums.

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Now

GuerssenAdmin — Thu, 10 Apr 2025 22:00:00 +0000

Now is Astrud Gilberto’s first attempt to be taken seriously as a songwriter, at a time when simply singing standards was seen as lacking. Her four songs on this ten-song album show she has a way with a melody, though obviously influenced by countrymen Milton Nascimento and Jorge Ben, and her producer Eumir Deodato. “Gingele” and “Zigy Zigy Za” are exactly the kind of rip-based tropicalismo that Ben and company were making popular around this time. “Take It Easy My Brother Charlie” is probably her best song here. Very few concessions are made to America; only “Daybreak (Walking Out of Yesterday)” comes from the pop world, with instrumentation and sound coming from south of the equator.

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Windy

GuerssenAdmin — Thu, 10 Apr 2025 22:00:00 +0000

Windy is a 1968 studio album by Astrud Gilberto, arranged by Eumir Deodato, Don Sebesky, and Patrick Williams. Windy proves one of Astrud Gilberto’s most consistent and sublime eports, artfully straddling the division between Brazilian bossa nova and American sunshine pop.

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Joyce

GuerssenAdmin — Tue, 19 Mar 2024 23:00:00 +0000

The Brazilian singer-songwriter and guitarist Joyce Silveira Moreno was born and raised in the middle of Copacabana, a short beach stroll from the epicentre of the bossa nova universe. Since her older brother was friendly with leading lights of the bossa nova movement such as Roberto Menescal and Eumir Deodato, she was steeped in the form at an early age and witnessed its key evolution first-hand. She began studying journalism in 1967, shortly before her controversial song “Me Disseram” reached the finals of Rio’s second International Song Competition. The following year, her self-titled debut album was produced by Armando Pittigliani, with orchestration by Dorival Caymmi and arrangements by Gaya; along with her own compositions, the album also featured songs by her rising-star friends, including Caetano Veloso and Marcos Valle.

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Ralf & Florian

GuerssenAdmin — Mon, 24 Mar 2025 23:00:00 +0000

Ralf and Florian (original German title: Ralf und Florian) is the third studio album by the German electronic band Kraftwerk. It was released in October 1973 and it saw the group moving toward their signature electronic sound. This work introduces greater cleanliness in the sounds and intensifies the use of electronic instrumentation, namely synths (Mini Moog, the EMS AKS and Farfisa), drum machines and, for the first time, a prototype vocoder. The formation thus approaches the stylistic code of the best-known works, starting from Autobahn, the latter considered to be the true debut of Kraftwerk. In 2008, Fact named it among the 20 greatest ambient albums ever made.

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Nara Leao

GuerssenAdmin — Thu, 27 Mar 2025 23:00:00 +0000

Nara Leão is known as “the muse of bossa nova”. Already as a teenager in the late 1950s, she became friends with several singers and composers who took part in Bossa Nova’s musical revolution, including João Gilberto, Vinicius de Moraes, and Antônio Carlos Jobim. By 1963, after singing as an amateur for a few years, she became a professional and toured with Sérgio Mendes. In 1968 she appeared on the album “Tropicália: ou Panis et Circenses” together with artists including Gilberto Gil, Caetano Veloso, Os Mutantes and Gal Costa, performing “Lindonéia”, which appears as first track in this album, published in the same year.

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1st

GuerssenAdmin — Mon, 24 Mar 2025 23:00:00 +0000

This is the first full-length LP by the famous Brazilian musician and songwriter Sebastião “Tim” Rodrigues Maia, known for his iconoclastic, ironic, outspoken, and humorous musical style. This album includes the classics “Azul da Cor do Mar”, “Coroné Antônio Bento”, and “Primavera”, which topped the charts for 24 weeks in Rio de Janeiro.

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