Japanese import.
A few weeks back on a social media site, I posted the following Radio & Records chart from 1982:
p. 38 |
I was familiar with most of these albums - I had 3 or 4 back in '82 and count at least three that have previously appeared on this blog (plus I have an inexplicable obsession with the Elektra/Musician label) - but I hadn't heard the Dan Siegel album and I was completely unfamiliar with Nightwind. A few clicks later, I had copies of both en route: the Nightwind was on vinyl and I ripped/posted a copy of it for ya, and this CD was on my front porch the next day. I've been listening to it quite a bit over the past month when I haven't been in the mood for Christmas tunes. Siegel is a composer/keyboardist and he gets some help here from top-notch session musicians such as Abe Laboriel, Larry Carlton, Tom Browne, and Tom Scott, among others.
Billboard, March 20, 1982, p. 69 |
Which is far more complimentary than this Amazon user review:
I have been a Dan Siegel fan since the late 90s. Unfortunately, this CD is my least favorite of his works. Every single song in this collection sounds like a cheesy theme song from a mid 80s TV show that was mercifully cancelled after the first season. It's nothing like his other work, and I hate it. After listening to the entire thing, I ejected it from the drive and threw it into the trash.Ouch. The Grusin and Post comparisons are apt but that's not necessarily a bad/cheesy thing; there are a few good tunes among the 9 tracks here.
Album chart peaks:
- US Billboard Top 200: Did not chart
- Billboard Jazz: #30
- CashBox Jazz: #21
- Radio & Records Jazz Radio National Airplay: #4
Tracks, ranked in order of preference:
- Soaring - a smooth, mid-tempo joint featuring Mark Hatch on flugelhorn simple melody, this one has an early Catching The Sun-era Spyro Gyra feel to it.
- Enchanted Forest - laid back smoothness featuring Larry Carlton. In no way resembles "a cheesy theme song from a mid 80s TV show." Siegel solos on piano.
- Deserted Beach - if this ballad had ended up on a Chuck Mangione album, I don't think anyone would have known the difference.
- Uptown - featuring Tom Scott, this upbeat track admittedly has a slight TV-show-theme vibe to it when he's playing the melody, but it's one of the better compositions on the album. Bonus points for the ending tenor solo.
- Great Expectations - with a Westcoast groove, this yacht-lite album opener gets some help from Scott, but it's a little synth heavy. More Grusin than Post.
- The Lone Ranger - a straight-up Grusin knock-off, complete with orchestration. Again, Carlton gets the spotlight.
- The Conqueror - the tune starts with synth riff over a pedal tone that sounds like something Jonathan Cain might have written for Journey. But instead of Steve Perry's vocals, we get an instrumental melody from Carlton.
- Passing Time - Showcasing Tom Scott, this tune might have been later stolen by NBC as the basis for Jack Elliott's theme to Night Court.
- Touch And Go - theme from the short-lived TV medical sitcom "Touch And Go" which, in the same vein as The Love Boat, starred a rotating cast of guest stars as surgeons who all use a magical, talking scalpel to perform miraculous life-saving procedures. Wise-cracking, political incorrectness, and hilarity ensue.
At the end of every gut-busting episode, the surgeon greets the family with good news, starting with the show's catch-phrase, "It was touch and go there for awhile, but then..." The show was quickly cancelled, probably because I just made it up.
On the date of this re-release, September 24, 2015, ¥1,000 was the equivalent of $9.16. I paid a few dollars more than that in 2019. |
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