Catapilla- Catapilla

Ever wanted to know what happens when you mix prog, blues, and jazz? You get Catapilla. This 1971 debut album (first of two) came from a British conglomerate featuring Robert Calvert (Saxophone), Grahm Wilson (guitar), Dave Taylor (Bass), Malcolm Firth (Drums), Hugh Eaglestone (Saxophone), and the distinctive rasp of Anna Meek (Vocals). Though their albums had some critical success and influenced peers, commercial success eluded the group.

Things kick off with the steamy "Naked Death", which is driven by frenetic saxophone and drum work for 15+ minutes of work. The guitar is aggressive as hell, and Meek's vocals are totally deranged and very creepy. They grate the ears, and she's going to be one of those love them or hate them things. The wah-wahs and jamming get cumbersome after a while. The much shorter "Tumbleweed" comes after all the meandering, which is really nothing but a rather well done blues rock number. The following "Promises" then shifts over into a short Jazz fusion song. The saxophone led melody is very catchy, and this song transitions well between several movements. The 24 minute epic "Embryonic Fusion" takes up side B, and it spends a long time with a monotonous bass beat underlying some sax jamming. Afterwards it starts going into that jazz and blues hybrid, and it drags on way too long.

Quite a bit of musical motifs take place here. On one hand, Catapilla wants to be a bluesy jam band record. On the other, it wants to do jazz fusion. Both turn out well when isolated from each other on the two shorter songs, but when blended together the whole affair becomes a meandering mess. I do like Meek's vocal though, it's a really weird Janis Joplin type voice. She adds a shock factor to the record, which can pull it through some of its lows.

A stew of genres and ideas, dragging things out too long hampers the work. Grade: C+

Frank Zappa- Hot Rats

With a man like Frank Zappa, it's impossible to pick a single album to represent the entire body of work. For our purposes, we'll pick his best regarded and fairly accessible 1969 release Hot Rats. At this point in his career, Zappa has dissolved the first lineup of the Mothers of Invention, and wanted to move on. He did so by ditching his short, satirical bites of sound and opting for a nearly instrumental mix of Early Jazz Fusion and Early Progressive Rock. He has many guests assisting him here, including ex-Mother Ian Underwood on sax and Captain Beefheart on the record's only vocal. Another notable thing about this album is it's one of the first to use a 16 track recording system, furthering the complexity of the music industry.

The first song is the short but sweet "Peaches in Regalia", a jazzy track with horns and guitar distortion. It has lots of little phrases that work together to form an extremely catchy melody. There even seems to be a bit of Indian influence in the rhythm structure. After that, there's the sensational 9-minute hard rock song "Willie The Pimp", which starts off with Beefheart's raspy, gritty vocal (the only one on the album) and a fiddle. From there, things get (more) intense, and Zappa ends up giving us a phenomenal seven minute guitar solo. That's about it. This track is one that absolutely must be heard in its full glory. Rounding out the A side is another 9 minute song, "Son of Mr. Green Jeans". This one is a much more mellow, with more horns ans a jazz rock feel. The track was actually a reworking of the earlier "Mr. Green Jeans" on the Uncle Meat album.

Another quickie starts of side B, "Little Umbrellas." It's got stacks ans stacks of overdubs by Underwood, and is a mellow lounge-jazzy track. Not the album's best, but nice nonetheless. Next up comes another one of the album's long centerpieces, "The Gumbo Variations". For this cut, there's lots of guitar and saxophone doing work, and the mix of jazz fusion and blues rock influences is quite apparent. It meanders over its 16 minutes, but it's got some good structural developments. Lastly, "It Must Be a Camel" plays, and it follows a similar pattern to "Peaches" and "Umbrellas". The most notable feature is the jumps in melody, which create "Camel Humps" in the sheet music.

Hot Rats is a record that goes all over the place. Zappa plays around with all kinds of instruments, melodies, and harmonies, and out of it comes something that is quite unique. While there may be a dud section here and there, almost all of the experiments are successes, with hours and hours of fun for a music theory student to pick apart. Though it's a bit lopsided, with a stacked A side and a just-good B-Side, it doesn't suffer from record fatigue. Defiantly a 7 on the complexity scale. One word to the wise: the CD and Vinyl mixes of this album are different, and there's big debate as to which is superior.

This one is one of those albums that pulls you in and keeps you enticed through many many listens, with some new feature every time. Grade: A+

The Mahavishnu Orchestra- The Inner Mounting Flame

Time for the Prog Blog to take a dip into Jazz Fusion for the first time. The Mahavishnu Orchestra is perhaps the most famous collective within the field. Formed by John McLaughlin (guitar) in 1971 with the concept of a Jazz group featuring the violin, he made a formidable lineup con siting of Rick Liard (bass), Billy Cobham (Drums), Jan Hammer (keyboards), and Jerry Goodman (violin), some of the best jazz men of their age. They recorded and released The Inner Mounting Flame in '71 to great reception.

The album gets right into business with "Meeting of the Spirits", which introduces the mystic form of guitar Hammer uses from here on out, mystical violins, and McLaughlin's distinct playing of guitar. He plays incredibly fast against a mid-tempo background for mystic effect. Next up is a slow grove jam into guitar fest called "Dawn", not to dissimilar from what Miles Davis was doing at this time in history. Noonward Race is a strange experiment of incredibly fast guitar distortion and violin playing. Then comes "A Lotus on Irish Streams", a beautiful little classical piece. It's slightly new age, strange for something from 1971.

Side B contains the violent "Vital Transformation". This another guitar/violin workout, but the drums join in too for great effect. It does have the air of fear from a transformation. Then we've got "Dance of the Maya", which is another Davis/Coltrane-esque piece of slow feeling built up over 7 minutes. The tracks "You Know You Know" and "Awakening" close of The Inner Mounting Flame in style, repeating the major themes of aggression and passiveness with great contrast.

The power of this album hinges on the musical ability. For non musicians, it might seem like just another album, but they all play with such speed (especially McLaughlan) that it's almost uncanny. Their style wasn't all that unique despite the jazz with violin's concept, but in the end the sheer gusto of the album makes it worth it. However, it's a little repetitive, and there's a tendency to get the songs mixed up with each other. It's truly an album rather than a collection of songs on this one.

A kaleidoscope of sounds and noises to nourish the mind, The Inner Mounting Flame earns a solid Grade of B.