Tuesday 14 October 2008

Emil Richards - The Spirit Of 1976






EMIL RICHARDS and The Microtonal Blues Band
The Spirit Of 1976/Live at Donte's
1969
256+ VBR LAME mp3
Vinyl rip & scans from Impulse! AS 9182



Having covered Mainstream and Muse in the last couple posts, now it's time for some long OOP material for Greg's new Impulse! records blog. Here we have Emil's follow up to the previous year's Journey To Bliss. This live set is decidedly less hippie and more hip as gurus have been swapped for grooves and the only narration consists of short snippets of Richards introducing each number to the crowd.


AMG Bio
by Scott Yanow

A well-respected studio musician long based in Los Angeles, Emil Richards has been on a countless number of sessions, contributing his vibes mostly anonymously to recordings in all genres of music. He started playing xylophone when he was six and, while still in tenth grade, Richards played with the Hartford Symphony Orchestra. After graduating from the Hartt School of Music and Hilliard College (1949-52), he played in an Army band in Japan (working with Toshiko Akiyoshi). Richards later worked with Charles Mingus, Willie Ruff, Ed Shaughnessy, Ed Thigpen, George Shearing's Quintet (1956-58), Paul Horn (1960-64), Jimmy Witherspoon, Shorty Rogers and many others.

In the early-to-mid 1960's, Richards co-led the Hindustani Jazz Sextet with Don Ellis, mixing together Indian music with jazz. He was also a member of Stan Kenton's Neophonic Orchestra, the Roger Kellaway Cello Quartet and toured with both Frank Sinatra and Frank Zappa in the 1970's. Emil Richards, who recorded as a leader for Impulse (1965-66) and Interworld (two CDs in 1994-95), owns over 350 percussion instruments and has long been interested in ethnic folk music although he considers his main influence to be Lionel Hampton.


Emil Richards - Vibes, Electric Vibes, Octave Marimba, Percussion
Dave Mackay - Piano, Percussion
Ray Neapolitan - Bass, Fender Bass
Joe Porcaro - Drums
Mark Stevens - Percussion


1 Spirit Of 1976
2 Peek-A-Boo
3 All Blue
4 One Tooth Grin
5 Like Me
6 10 To 5
7 Jordu


You can catch the spirit from Soundological HERE or HERE.

11 comments:

ish said...

Somehow I never heard of this one. Thanks Cheeba.

winton tostello said...

i've been searching this shit everywhere.you are my hero.!!!

cheeba said...

glad you enjoy gents!

i lucked into this one when i was young and dumb so it's seen better days but is a great LP.

ish, seen a few around the net when writing up he post, generally $10 - $15 US and well worth it if you ask me!

g.raf said...

Thanks Cheeba.
Like this one alot!

Djalma said...

Thanks for this one Cheeba!
And I must say, this spot is one of the best around, believe me!
Anyway, I've added you to my "Blogs Better Than Mine" list, so feel free to drop by from time to time and say a little something...
Peace bro!






Djalma

cheeba said...

Hi Djalma,

I appreciate the kind words and will definitely pop 'round for some of your tasty soul food. I also can't believe I hadn't already out you on my blog roll but fixed that today!

Thanks!

Cheeba

onthebeat said...

Great album, thanks!
Fine playing on this set.

Anonymous said...

Thanks a lot for this.

I've just posted 'Dave Mackay & Vicky Hamilton: Rainbow' (Impulse!, 1970)

Did an 'Impulse! in California' discog for that post and linked here.

http://guitarandthewind.blogspot.com/2009/08/dave-mackay-vicky-hamilton-rainbow-1970.html

cheeba said...

Thanks for the heads up porco! Honoured to get a mention at your wonderful home!

boogieman said...

Thanks for this album, I did not know it.
I'm looking for a download of Journey to Bliss which I used to own but got rid off years ago with a lot of other hippy/psychedelic/prog albums and paraphernalia (something I came to regret when I see the price some of these albums are fetching these days).
Cheers

cheeba said...

You're welcome boogieman!

Man, don't get me thinkin' about all the stuff I traded/sold over the last 20 years! I feel your pain!

As for Journey to Bliss. I took a moment to update the links in the post thanks to your prompting and found an old one for that LP still active at Soul'd Out (link in post).

Enjoy!