Tuesday 21 November 2017

Ponty. Jean Luc - Open Mind (1984)


The 15th album from this French artist.

Jean Luc Ponty was on the violins again. He also played some piano and synths here.
He had help from a quartet including George Benson and Chick Corea. The lineup was guitar, drums, tabla and synths.

The artwork is very stripped down and I get the feeling that the music too is not going to be exactly flowery when I read the credits and the details on the CD. A very sparse setup, indeed.

Stripped down too, was my fears.

So we get one guitar solo from George Benson and two synths solos from Chick Corea. The rest is drums, no bass and lots of Jean Luc Ponty. That means Jean Luc Ponty on violins and synths.

Lots of violins, in fact. And that means the sound and this forty minutes long album is not as stripped down as I feared. It is just a proper solo album where Jean Luc Ponty is everywhere. He probably did the coffee and catering too.... He is the producer, at least.

Punk rock, this album is not. It is actually quite a flowery jazzy album with a lot of fusion and Latin-American influences. There is just one flower here and that is enough. The music is pretty groovy too and in the same vein as the albums preceding this album. Lots of violin solos on the top of a groove and a melody.

The end result is actually another good album from this maestro musician. It is a different album, but still a good album. I bow my head in the front of this maestro.

3 points

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