8 October 2014

Ray Russell-Dragon Hill-1970

Here's a great little LP on the short lived CBS Realm label series,which released other quite stunning albums by..Gordon Beck,Frank Ricotti Tony Oxley, and Barry Guy among others.

Ray Russell, a british Guitarist who despite having a jazz background,much like his contemporary Chris Spedding say, seems to have spent a lot of his professional life in the studios,
making library records for TV, and Films as well as playing on dozens of well known rock albums by Phil Spector, Art Garfunkel, Tina Turner, Dionne Warwick and countless others.

.He was also notably in Harry Beckett's Sound of Joy and similar fusion projects in the mid 70's.

This though is an exploratory at times quite free set of sophisticated extended post bop compositions , flavoured by  touches of RnB, and Rock.

Russell's an interesting thoughtful player who's playing here is fluid,inventive even ecstatic!.yeah very beautiful sitting to these ears somewhere between 60's john Mclaughlin and Sonny sharrock's
'Tauhid" period, and just as interesting..

relistening again after many years... one hears a strong stylistic connection to early Soft Machine,as well as Jack Bruce Elton Dean  and Keith Tippett's contemporaneous free inflected Fusion albums...

heres a link to his website
and discogs entry

be nice to know more about some of the other players here, of whom really only Ron Mathewson, Harry Beckett, and Lyn Dobson are familiar names..

This record has to my knowledge, yet to be reissued , though the even better "Rituels" from 1971 posted here by boromir in 2008 , has been, as has live at the ICA on RCA also from 71
Righteous RAY!!
enjoy!

20 comments:

SOTISE said...

FLAC PICS
http://7zghwb2yx2.1fichier.com/

headman said...

Another fine album you're sharing here, Sotise. It has in fact been reissued on CD but many years ago and is now very difficult to find.
I believe Ray Russell is still playing. The last time I saw him was at Ian Carr's memorial concert on the South Bank in February, 2010 where he played several blistering solos.

john said...

many thanks, this looks interesting. I remember he had a band 'Running Man' who did an exciting session (in my memory) for John Peel in the early 70's. Looking forward to this.

grumpy said...

Sony reissued it on CD back in '99 but it disappeared very quickly and I've never managed to find a copy.
I once had a reel-reel tape copied from my local library LP but that's long gone.
A round about way of saying an enormous thank you for this lossless rip!

Unknown said...

Nice one. Thanks. Ray Russell is a very underrated guitarist.

wightdj said...

Always cool, thanks.

grumpy said...

And what a great sounding rip Sotise! Who needs CDs?

softnucleus said...

Here are the CD's "British Jazz Reissue Series" (Sony, 1999) I bought at that time:
Ray Russell: "Dragon Hill", "Rites and Rituals".
Howard Riley: "Angle", "The Day Will Come".
Frank Ricotti: "Our Point of View".
Ronnie Scott: "Live at Ronnie Scott's" (with Surman, Wheeler).
Tony Oxley: "The Baptised Traveller" (with Kenny Wheeler).
They are really treasures!

SOTISE said...

soft nucleus, if you are offering i'd certainly take you up on ,Angle and live at Ronnie Scotts!

softnucleus said...

Sotise, I'm glad to let you have the records you ask in wav. By the way you can find Angle here http://differentperspectivesinmyroom.blogspot.it/2013/04/howard-riley-trio-angle-lp-1969.html although in mp3 @320.

softnucleus said...

Ronnie Scott & The Band - Live at Ronnie Scott's (recorded 1968, reissued 1999) http://we.tl/8XU51UgBOW

Anonymous said...

thanks Soft N, Much appreciated!

-Otto- said...

Thank you, SOTISE!

chuchuni said...

Belated thanks, sotise!

Jazzrealities said...

Link is no longer working. Can you please re-upload it again? Thanks in advance
jazzrealities
see blog

correct silence said...

new rip
https://1fichier.com/?0csas9n2baqwpbelv1nx

Ernst Grgo Nebhuth said...

Thanks, correct silence!

mike said...

Thank you, CS!

agmosk said...

Very cool! Thanks!

JT said...

Please could you fix the link?