Sunday 15 November 2009

Moe Koffman - Back To Bach





MOE KOFFMAN
Back To Bach

1979

256+ VBR LAME mp3
Vinyl rip & scans from Anthem ANR-1-1023

Canned Daddy


Nursury Rhyme Dancer



This is widely acknowledged as the worst set from the entire Moe Koffman catalogue and that truly says something, don't it? Frankly, it encapsulates everything wrong with discofied jazz and much of music in general at the end of the 70s (or is that the start of the 80s?): monotonous metronome disco beats, cheezy and unchallenging solos, horrendous concept albums, salubrious string sections, schmaltzy balladry, slick assembly-line production sapping the soul out of every note and even bad cover art to boot.

Obviously Moe had exhausted his ideas and made an ill-advised return to not only the nearly dried-out well of Western Classical Music but, as the the title so non-cleverly states, back to Bach's well-worn and immediately-identifiable ditties. Bad call there, buddy.
On the bright side, beat builders may find a funky brick or two to work with here - however "brick" is definitely the operative word overall since this here album sinks like one in almost every aspect.

In the immortal words of Brenda Lee: I'm sorry. So sorry. Sorry my completist tendencies compel me to cough up this chunk of Can Con crap into your lap. But hey, this means Moe's mostly done here at SI (check his discography post here) and we can hold our head high for keepin' it real and reppin' our hinterland 'hood...


Moe Koffman - Flute & Piccolo
Doug Riley - Keyboards & Toy Drum
Bob Mann - Guitar
Tom Szczesniak - Bass
Bob McLaren - Drums & Percussion
Brian Leonard - Drums & Percussion


1 Canned Daddy
2 The Wooden Soldier
3 Singing Voices
4 Bad N Eerie
5 Back to Bach
6 Bach's Lunch
7 Air D'Or (Melody of Gold)
8 Irish Tea Party
9 See Us Home
10 Nursery Rhyme Dancer


Bach up with Soundological HERE or HERE.

9 comments:

DJInnaSoul said...

I like to play a little game with myself, if I don't know what year an album is I like to formulate a guess from it's cover. I went for 1978, one year out.

Many thanks as ever Mr Cheebs.

freebones said...

oh, i dunno, cheeba.

of course it's crap, but the cover art is funny!

are moe and bach having a contest to see who can extend their leg the longest? they aren't resting on anything. why is bach composing on his knee? when did moe get jaw surgery to look more like ryu from street fighter? is bach really from the baroque period or is he a pilgrim? is moe really into tennis all of a sudden? why doesn't moe wear socks?

these are important questions. :)

matthew said...

Think I'll pass on the music and just enjoy the writing. Thanks again Cheeba for some brilliant entertainment!

cheeba said...

AInnaSoul - I know that game! Hitting it give or take a year's pretty good if you ask me!

@freebones, that's the spirit! Waiting for one of the other curators to post at CJC but until then, you pretty much nailed it! One you missed: Moe's got cankles.

@matthew, not a bad call. Not at all. Glad to hera you like the writing too! Thanks!

Goofy said...

Cheeba, your review makes this very hard to resist; "salubrious string sections" and all... I'm going to have either a swell time or incredible headache with this one.

avocado kid said...

I'm with matthew. Thanks for a clever post, worth a chuckle.

LYSERGICFUNK said...

Nice Post-
Fantastic Blog-
Great Man (YOU)-

Thanks Guido/LF

cheeba said...

Gents, thanks for giving me a grin. Glad to see my readers have a sense of humour!

Goofy, you were warned but I hope it didn't cause you too much pain!

Sergio said...

Looking at the discography, it seems that's one album missing... "MUSIC FOR THE NIGHT". I'm not sure about it, but it seems to be a kind of tribute to Andrew Lloyd webber... if you wnat to check, take allok at
http://www.cduniverse.com/search/xx/music/pid/3953991/a/Music+For+The+Night.htm
Thanks for all the Moe albums you share!