Coalition Mindsweepers Private Press Jazz Psych Prog Funk Fusion Ithaca NY

$

300

Ultra Rare Upstate NY Private Press Release featuring Monk Rowe who would later headed up Reunion for their equally obscure When The Well Runs Dry / A Brighter Day just a few years later in 1978. 

Coalition Mindsweepers
Label: Not On Label Coalition 5102N6 Format: Vinyl, LP, Stereo Country: US Released: 1975 Genre: Jazz Style: Fusion A1 Till Your Brains Fall Out Written-By – Stan Gosek A2 Elegy Written-By – Dennis Rowe (3) B1 Martial Written-By – Dennis Rowe (3) B2 Odyssey Green Written-By – Billy Nicholson* Recorded At – Pyramid Sound Recording Studios Pressed By – QCA Custom Pressing – 5102N6 Design [Cover, Label And Logo] – Laura Furletti Drums, Marimba, Percussion – Bill Nicholson (2) Drums, Percussion – Tom McGrath (5) Electric Bass, Tuba – Patrick Carmody Electric Piano, Piano [Acoustic Piano] – Stan Gosek Engineer [Engineering] – Lester Tyler Lacquer Cut By – LR* (tracks: A1, A2), MF* (tracks: B1, B2) Management – David Zimmermann, James Krul Producer [Produced By] – Jack Schluep Saxophone [Saxophones], Flute – Dennis "Monk" Rowe* Trumpet, Flugelhorn – Don Goodness Recorded at Pyramid Sound, Ithaca, August 14 and 15, 1975.
Continuing shortly on from the last fusion post of Genre here's another ultra-gem dug up out of the heaps of oblivion. This is from mid-seventies and without doubt has a bit more of the earlier Soft-Machine style of prog-fusion. Here are some of the peculiarities of this particular record that make it highly worth your while: Starting with a strong opener in C minor with an unusual chord change to F sharp (?) we move into a sax solo interlude followed by a C major composed baroque-style canon. This to me harks back to Charlie Mingus' song of the same name (I think, because that track was also in C but I might be mistaken since I haven't heard it in years).
Side two starts with a march (believe it or not) in 7/4 alternating with 9/4 which gives it that jerky sound, starting with drums and flute, and then using some really tasty strange piano chords full of jazz-dissonances to accentuate the simple melody. We then get a G7 song that recalls spring especially with the constant flute solos hovering abovehead like a pesky songbird looking for peanut butter. This then crashes abruptly into a modal E song, that is, scale of diatonic C is used for solos, no sharps. Some incredibly tough gruff electric key chords, typical modal sounds stage rhodes soloing, before returning to the G7 theme. Quite a good record and outstanding to hear something so unknown, turn out so good. They did a second album subsequently called "Birth"...
I can only repeat how rich the mine of fusion is from this period with seemingly no bedrock in sight still. This is especially true of german late-seventies fusion, to which I would like to turn attention to shortly. In this regard there is a huge amount of impossible to hear material out there, which some feel should be hidden from the masses of humanity. It confuses me why one would want to hide from fans music that they would love, when in the first place, there are so few fans of this style still around and about, and why someone feels they need to hide it from those very few fans who are probably diminishing year by year in number. Maybe someone can explain to me the rationale in the comments section without getting too rude in the process. What is without a doubt true is that the germans adopted the progressive fusion style (just as they mastered electronics and krautrock and developed them into artforms) and really ran with it, creating some of the most amazing high-energy jazz-rock in human history since the middle ages. This should be part of the german heritage but puzzlingly it is not. Of all countries it seems as if germans are the least cognizant of their progressive past.