Just received my 4CD-compilation box set of George Duke jazz fusion from Promising Music: My Soul — The Complete MPS Fusion Recordings. This compilation includes the original MPS albums “Faces In Reflection”, “Feel”, “The Aura Will Prevail”, “I Love The Blues, She Heard My Cry” and “Liberated Fantasies”…plus the two recordings “The Inner Source” and “Solus”, that could originally be found on a double vinyl album set entitled “The Inner Source”.
Track list:
CD 1
1. Au Right 3:23
2. Love Reborn 7:21
3. Peace 7:29
4. So There You Go 5:11
5. The Followers 5:13
6. Solus 9:00
7. Nigerian Numberuma 2:45
8. My Soul 4:39
9. The Inner Source 6:10
10. Life 5:44
11. Sometime Ago 5:07
12. Feels So Good 6:57
13. Manya 3:33
CD 2
1. Sweet Bite 3:29
2. Twenty-Five 4:57
3. Always Constant 6:49
4. The Opening 3:19
5. Capricorn 5:07
6. Piano Solo No.1 1:16
7. Piano Solo No.2 1:07
8. Psychocomatic Dung 5:04
9. Faces In Reflection No.1 3:41
10. Maria Tres Filhos 5:09
11. North Beach 6:19
12. Da Somba 6:18
13. Faces In Reflection No.2 2:23
14. Funny Funk 5:18
15. Love 6:05
16. The Once Over 4:43
CD 3
1. Feel 5:38
2. Cora Jobege 2:47
3. Old Slippers 5:37
4. Theme From The Opera “Tzina” 2:01
5. Yana Aminah 4:34
6. Rashid 3:36
7. Statement 1:16
8. Chariot 2:59
9. Look Into Her Eyes 3:24
10. Sister Serene 4:33
11. That’s What She Said 4:29
12. Mashavu 1:48
13. Rokkinrowl, I Don’t Know 3:25
14. Prepare Yourself 5:26
15. Giant Child Within Us – Ego 6:37
16. Someday 2:41
17. I Love The Blues, She Heard My Cry 5:26
CD 4
1. Dawn 4:57
2. For Love (I Come Your Friend) 4:41
3. Foosh 3:11
4. Floop De Loop 6:46
5. Malibu 4:06
6. Fools 4:35
7. Echidna’s Arf 3:35
8. Uncle Remus 5:11
9. The Aura 1:26
10. Don’t Be Shy 3:00
11. Seeing You 4:32
12. Back To Where We Never Left 6:27
13. What The… 0:33
14. Tryin’ & Cryin’ 5:47
15. I C’n Hear That 5:18
16. After The Love 2:32
17. Tzina 2:32
18. Liberated Fantasies 9:22
While the packaging is certainly a no frills affair (4 discs inside one fold-out hard plastic case, which includes a booklet of liner notes outlining all the various musicians involved in the recording of each song on each one of the albums), the remastered sound of these tracks is absolutely outstanding. Compared to the only other compilation which had been available on the market before now, Three Originals, there simply is no comparison. An absolute must have for any 70s jazz fusion fans.
Update from Promising Music Infodesk — Monday, July 7th, 2008:
a) The George Duke — My Soul (4CD Box Set) is not a Promising Music release, but done by Universal Germany (hence the “standard packaging”). We just included it as a “service title” in our web shop.
b) Universal Germany raised prices (they call it “adjust”) on their box sets, so it’s no longer at 25plus Euros, but 30sth Euros for non-EU fellows (inside EU VAT has to be added, making it 36 flat) by now.
Keep it up!
Your promising music team
I’ve got a lot of George Duke’s late ’70s work, but none from this period. I’d love to hear his versions of ‘Echidna’s Arf’ and ‘Uncle Remus’.
jamez: the album those songs are on is really excellent – the best of the period, I think. It’s called ‘The Aura Will Prevail’, and it’s not just the Zappa tunes which are good.
Thanks for the news, UG. I have the ‘Three Originals’ set, and, no, it doesn’t sound that good (not as good as the vinyl). I’m glad someone is taking care of this material.
[quote comment=”1472″]I’ve got a lot of George Duke’s late ’70s work, but none from this period. I’d love to hear his versions of ‘Echidna’s Arf’ and ‘Uncle Remus’.[/quote]
I’m due to compile another muxtupe soon, so I’ll include these two among other examples of early to mid 70s jazz fusion:
http://urbangraffito.muxtape.com/
Vinyl is the best
[quote comment=”1483″][quote comment=”1472″]I’ve got a lot of George Duke’s late ’70s work, but none from this period. I’d love to hear his versions of ‘Echidna’s Arf’ and ‘Uncle Remus’.[/quote]
I’m due to compile another muxtupe soon, so I’ll include these two among other examples of early to mid 70s jazz fusion:
http://urbangraffito.muxtape.com/%5B/quote%5D
Thanks again , Urbangraffito! Just listened to a couple of minutes of George’s version of Uncle Remus. It sounds a lot to me like ‘Open Our Eyes’-era (1974) Earth, Wind & Fire, like Maurice White singing multi-tracked lead vocals while Larry Dunn plays gospel-style piano. Certainly Duke’s late ’70s work is very EWF influenced.
I remember reading that the version of ‘Uncle Remus’ George released is more like what it was originally intended to be when he and Frank wrote it – a gospel parody. In fact, I think it’s a pretty safe bet that George wrote the music and Frank just wrote words.
Other excellent tracks from that album: ‘The Aura’, ‘Foosh’, ‘For Love’ ‘Malibu’.