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Urban75 Album of the Year 1974

In 1974 US singer based in Munich Donna Sommer met producers Giorgio Moroder and Pete Bellotte at recording sessions for US rock band Three Dog Night. They recorded some songs together, but on the demo her name was misspelled as Summer. The new name stuck and they released an album, Lady of the Night. It's a euro-pop record that was only released in Europe and they wouldn't go disco for another year.

Lead single The Hostage is a banger, top 10 in Belgium, the Netherlands and Spain:

 
Not really relevant to AOTY, but the music event of the year was the Zaire 74 festival in Kinshasa, organised by Hugh Masekela and record producer Stuart Levine to coincide with the Ali-Forman Rumble in the Jungle. Forman hurt himself and the fight was postponed for six weeks, causing the international audience to miss it. The festival still went ahead to a crowd of 80,000 locals. James Brown, BB King, Sister Sledge, the Fania All Stars, The (Detroit) Spinners plus loads of African acts: Miriam Mabeka, Zaiko Langa Langa, Franco & TPOK Jazz, Tabu Ley Rochereau over three days. The African Woodstock.

All of it was filmed and recorded in high quality but hassle and legal bother with fight promoter Don King meant Masekela and Levine said fuck it and walked away once it was over so they didn't have to deal with King any more. The footage and recordings remained unseen and unheard for decades. The documentary film When We Were Kings came out in 1996 but was focused on the fight, a bootleg of James Brown's set was circulating in the 00s, the concert film Soul Power came out in 2008, mostly featuring the US acts, and sets by the African acts finally came out on CD in 2017.

Everything I've heard from it is amazing. Here's some of James Brown's set:

 
zahir said:
Curtis Mayfield - Sweet Exorcist

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Im late to Curtis Mayfield albums, only knew the most famous singles, these threads have got me listening deeper - theyre all brilliant. This one is a more subtle one but really happy to have finally gotten into them.
Indeliblelink said:
A song I actually loved in 1974, my parents bought me the album, I was 2. Still bangs.
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The Wombles... the band the Chipmunks could've been
 
Stewart Lee on his first gig, seeing the Wombles in 1974 - 1min30 in

From the comments
"I saw the Wombles in Torquay, probably on the same tour.They played at the 400 Club under-18s night to a crowd of rowdy unfriendly aggressive teenagers. When the band came back on stage for the obligatory encore, they had to walk through the crowd to the stage, those poor Wombles were kicked and punched all the way.It was rumoured Madame Cholet got caught stealing a case of Vodka from the cellar.Happy Days."!
 
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Finnish prog rock band Wigwam release their most ambitious album Being. A king of musically dense lyrically intelligent concept album about Communism (Stalinism). It doesn't really sound quite like anything else including other Wigwam albums. And whereas it isn't experimental, you won't be humming the tunes. Divides audiences. There is a peculiar marmite power to it.

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Wigwam bassist Pekka Pohjola releases his second album Harakka Bialoipokku too in 1974. This leans more heavily towards jazz than the above and it's a really strong album, some great saxophone passages over still quite proggy chord progressions.

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Third Samla Mammas Manna album Klossa Knapitatet. Similar to their second album but beginning to experiment with some more free form parts. Swedish prog rock/jazz rock with a touch of madcap folk. Totally recommended.

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First Trettioåriga Kriget album too. Much heavier than the above sort of like the proggier bits of Uriah Heap without an organ (vaguely). It has its moments.


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Jazzový orchestr Čs. rozhlasu & M. Efekt - Nová syntéza 2

Modry Efekt (aka Blue Effect) teamed up with a jazz orchestra and choir for their follow up to 1971's Nová syntéza. The first side is a single track of 22 minutes of glorious pure drama of soaring guitar amid blasts of brass. It will have you hopping round the room punching the air. The second is a little less exiting...

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And something seminal in African music from Zaire...

Zaiko Langa Langa's Non Stop Dancing was the first album to feature the Cavacha drum rhythm. Pioneered by the band's drummer Meridjo Belobi in 1973 it became the backbone drum beat of soukous. If you've heard any 80s soukous it should be instantly familiar. You can hear it clearly on Eluzam 2:

 
Doing these lists I discover things and then in following years I discover follow up albums like I'm living in a 50 year time delay. So for this year I have an exciting new Marek Grechuta album to listen to and it turns out to be utterly brilliant. Poezja śpiewana (Polish spoken word poetry) combined with innovative jazz. There's something about the phrasing that makes this both conversational and musical. Really, really effective. The second side of this is shivers down the spine material even if I don't understand a word. Magia obłoków.

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Trying to find more similar to this there's Tadeusz Woźniak [Odcień ciszy]. Really dramatic, not quite as subtle as the above, but powerful in its own way.

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Stan Borys - Szukam przyjaciela. This was is more a big brassy jazz band affair.

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Łucja Prus. This seems to be an orchestral effort, though I'm having difficulty streaming all of it.

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In terms of British prog rock, aside from the aforementioned from King Crimson, Hatfield and the North, Egg, Robert Wyatt and Henry Cow the choice in my opinion (others may well differ) really has to go to Gentle Giant. The Power and the Glory is a concept album about a corrupt and ambitious politician. This is probably the most musically complex GG album and if you like music with lots of things going on it really hits the spot. But also check out the ballad Aspirations and the weird staccato shiftiness of So Sincere and the cheerful abandon of Playing the Game. Basically Gentle Giant predicted Keir Starmer 50 years ago.

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The last (for the minute at least!) prog(ish) rock album that I can recommend is Egberto Gismonti's Academia de danças. It both fits the symphonic rock category and the avant(ish) jazz category. Enough experimentation to keep it interesting, enough sense of build up and lyricism to keep it proggy and a touch of Brazilian MPB flavour.

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This year in Fleetwood Mac

Previously... Mick found out about Bob's affair with Jenny and the band split up mid-tour in the ensuing argument.

This episode... With the band split up, manager Clifford puts together an all new Fleetwood Mac to continue the tour. The real band go to LA to get a lawyer and decide to manage themselves. The 'new' Fleetwood Mac tour starts well, but once audiences realise it's a fake band they become increasingly hostile and the tour falls apart. The real band decide to go for a hit and record the Heroes Are Hard to Find album. The album doesn't do as well as they hope. An exhausted other Bob quits to go solo. Looking for new inspiration Mick asks Lindsey to join the band, but he'll only join if his partner Stevie can too.

On our next installment... will Lindsey and Stevie finally bring success to the band?

 
Knotted said:
Cos were another act who are very difficult to categorise. Belgium band, who included Marc Hollander. A little bit like the first Lard Free album. A little bit like Henry Cow. A little bit like Mad Curry. Jazz-rockish with lots of reeds. Very colourful and fronted by singer Pascale Son who sang/scat wonderfully on this one. Ridiculous album name Postaeolian Train Robbery. Ridiculous all over. I love it dearly.

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Weird coincidence, I chanced upon this article about Classroom who were Cos's predecessors, 1967-74.

faroutmagazine.co.uk

Classroom: The forgotten Belgian jazz fusion progenitors

Exploring the incredible legacy of Classroom, the long-forgotten Belgian progressive rock outfit that paved the way for the innovative jazz fusion of COS.
faroutmagazine.co.uk faroutmagazine.co.uk

I didn't know about Classroom, but according to the above they were little known but very influential in developing a European style jazz rock. A retrospective album was released last year and checking it out it is both excellent and in moments recognisably Cos. Vocalist Pascale Son is a very distinctive voice and it whenever she is on it, it coalesces to something very particular. Anyway it's really good, breezy jazz-rock with the emphasis on the jazz. It is by the way Daniel Schell who is the main architect of the band not Marc Hollander (at least at this point).

 
I should also highlight that Camel's best album Mirage was 1974. It gets A LOT of love over on RYM. Very professional and sophisticated if not particularly adventurous prog rock/jazz rock. I prefer their more twee third album tbh, but more on that next year...

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Two products of label (Virgin in both cases) rejections.

The second Slapp Happy album eventually released in its original form in 1980 had a backing band of Faust members and was produced by Faust producer Uwe Nettlebeck. Slapp Happy themselves were a studio based quirky pop/rock band with a hint of subversion. Faust with their oompa/motorick/rock leanings were too much for Virgin's commercial sensibilities and they were ordered to rerecord it with session musicians. The resulting album is mixed, the opening song Casablanca Moon's tango rhythm is improved I think by a much needed violin and the sugary love song A Little Something is realised in all its sugary glory here. But some of it is a real travesty. So mixed bag. Still a very peculiar little album and for the most part very likeable (IMO).



Comus's second album was rejected outright given how poorly First Utterance did. They eventually put out To Keep From Crying. An attempt at folk/pop a million miles away from the panicked darkness of their previous. Although it could be regarded as a sell it out, it's such a failure of a sell out it remains something very peculiar. Like they were trying to be ordinary but failed. The opener Down (Like a Movie Start) is the sort of rock out that's both great and very accessible, but after that, there are these strange wispy numbers that aren't quite like anything else and verge on both genius and not working at all. I find it very difficult to assess.

 
That Slapp Happy album has been the soundtrack to my adult life really. Like Fleetwood Mac's Rumours is to a lot of people or Abbey Road or something. Although it I think some of the songs flawed compared to original I must have listened to it thousands of times. One of those amazing pop albums where there are about a half a dozen classic tunes and the rest is still pretty good and lyrically intelligent throughout. Just this one nobody knows about.
 
A couple of solo guitar improvisation albums that are definitely worth your time.

Derek Bailey - Lot 74 - Solo Improvisations

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Fred Frith - Guitar Solos

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These are both using the instrument to create timbral contrasts as opposed to the usual rhythmic/harmonic/soloing instrument. The Derek Bailey is very recognisably Derek Bailey and is ultimately in the jazz tradition centring performance albeit with sonic variety. It is a particularly good one and well recorded.

The Fred Frith is more varied and consists of prepared guitar experiments which are actually very atmospheric. More in the classical/John Cage tradition. I do very strongly recommend giving this a listen. Each track is it's own sonic world. It should also be noted how Frith is playing on Henry Cow's Unrest where his guitar is almost completely outside all traditional guitar roles and is creating a sprinkling of drops of strange texture like a garnish, not as the basis for the rest of the music nor as an attention grabbing soloist.
 
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One last prog rock / modern classical-rock recommendation. Just in case anybody needs it.

There was definitely something interesting going on in Belgium in the early 70's. There isn't much but what there is sort of unique. Esperanto's Danse Macabre is the sort of violin heavy progressive rock that has absorbed the jagged fire of early 20th century composers like Shostakovich and Bartok (including the latter's Hungarian folk influences). Univers Zero and Art Zoyd would refine this sort of thing would form later in the decade but this is a very exciting album for its time. Very tight considering the music's tendency to keep stopping and starting and switching. Especially the drumming.

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