Chapter 12

Jazz Rock

 

You will see frequent reference in this chapter’s discography to albums that I have found by scouring second-hand record outlets in Wisconsin.  Some of these also can be found at various internet sites as well, including, of course, eBay.  Few of the Wisconsin-produced albums are still available new, although the Wounded Bird reissues of Sweetbottom and Matrix (see below) should be.

 

Sweetbottom’s two major label (Elektra-Asylum) releases, Angels of the Deep (1978) and Turn Me Loose (1979), are available on compact disc on Wounded Bird Records.  Their other albums, including Double Motion (SBM, 1980) and Live:  the Reunion (Urban Island, 2003, with Daryl Stuermer) can occasionally be found in second-hand stores in Wisconsin.

 

Oceans cut a couple of albums.  I turned up Second Chance (Breeze Records, 1986), which includes the excellent Milwaukee-raised drummer Ernie Adams.

 

Streetlife cut a number of CDs.  Among those I have unearthed are Both Sides of the Street (1993), Live at the Red Mill East (2001) and A Night in the Park (2006).

 

Daryl Stuermer, as noted in the text, has been on numerous high visibility albums.  With Jean-Luc Ponty (all on Atlantic), he played on Aurora (1975), Imaginary Voyage (1976), Enigmatic Ocean (1977), and Civilized Evil (1981).  These albums all rose high on the Billboard jazz charts (Enigmatic Ocean all the way to #1).

While these are not jazz albums, readers may be interested in Stuermer’s more widely known pop/rock work.  He has been on a number of live Genesis albums.  Phil Collins’s Face Value came out on Atlantic in 1981.  One might want to access a cross-section of Stuermer’s work with Collins on a collection such as Hits (Atlantic, 1998).  Jazz readers might be interested in the big band Collins led that was recorded on tour in 1998 with Stuermer in the band (Wisconsin trumpeter Dan Fornero (Chapter 17) was also on the band).  The resulting album was A Hot Night in Paris (WEA, 1999).

Among Stuermer’s locally produced albums (on Urban Island) are Another Side of Genesis (2000) and Waiting in the Wings (2001).

Stuermer has a listing of his recording credits, including videos, on his website:  https://darylstuermer.com/music-credits/

 

Montage’s Project One (MON, 1978) resurfaced in a Madison record store in the 2010s.

 

Jack Grassel reissued the album by the Milwaukee band Matrix, (stimulus for the auditory nerve), in 2003 on his Frozen Sky label.

 

The Fox Valley band Matrix issued four national releases during its traveling history:  Matrix IX (RCA, 1977), Wizard (Warner Brothers, 1978), Tale of the Whale (Warner Brothers, 1979) and Harvest (Pablo, 1980).  The two Warner’s albums, which were re-released on CD by Wounded Bird in 2009, were made available for download (at iTunes and amazon) in 2018.  A couple of times I have stumbled across the original local version of Matrix IX, titled simply Matrix, which was released in 1976 on Ultra Nova Records.  The reunion album, Proud Flesh:  A Matrix Reunion, came out on Summit Records in 2002.  The band released a download-only performance from 1979, Live at Lawrence University, in 2017.  It is available at CD Baby.

 

Opus released Timeless! in 2013 (Mobius Trip) and Definition in 2015 (Blujazz).  Curt Hanrahan has released a number of albums of his own.  Among those are the following:  The Curt Hanrahan Septet album of 2003, To Be Again, largely featured the compositions and arrangements of John Harmon (see Chapter 18).  The personnel includes Hanrahan’s bandmates from Opus, his brother Warren on drums, and trumpeter Jamie Breiwick (see Chapter 17).  A quartet did Souljourner (Blujazz, 2010), a mix of originals and jazz standards.

Discography