Listening to Patrick Moraz: The Story Of I, Part 1
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 12 ต.ค. 2024
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Listening to this you really can understand the impact he had on Relayer. If only Yes and Moraz could have stayed together a bit longer, at least for a few more albums…..
That's what I think still Going for the one came out… I love The Story of I.
Thanks Jim, My first YES concert was in 1976 the solo's tour in Tampa Florida. Patrick Moraz is a genius. His first 3 album's are great The story of i, Out in the sun & Patrick Moraz.
The first time I put this LP on, I was a 7 year old boy with an Afro that almost hit the ceiling. This album oriented my life in such a unique and unimaginable way. I'm grateful for Patrick and even more so for my father who actually had the gall to buy it. I would sit and listen to it with headphones (because it was early in the morning) while looking at the hand-written liner notes and imagine the whole thing as a movie, from beginning to end. It was one of the most magical experiences conceivable for a 7 year old kid in Iran. Still spellbound. Still have the LP, 3 countries and many decades later.
Went looking for this back about 1982. Found a scungy copy with no cover and scratches all over it. 90 cents. Played it till I went completely bananas.
Oh, YES! This is one of my favourite albums, a defiantly unique cycle of songs and keyboard/jazz/samba fusion pieces, masterfully written, arranged, played and recorced (good vocals too, often courtesy of John McBurnie). Sometimes like a mix between Santana and Tangerine Dream on speed! :D
I'm a huge fan of Relayer, where Moraz really became known to a wider public, and the reason I once discovered this album (recorded about a year later) was because an older friend who was also into Yes lent me a number of Yes and Yes-related albums so I could tape what I wanted onto cassettes (high quality cassettes, of course - they were still a cheap alternative). I was thrilled with this one. I had never heard anything quite like it. Much later rebought it on CD after the cassette had been worn out.
Fabulous album.
Brilliantly bonkers with some wonderful highs throughout.
It still sounds as wonderful as when I bought it in 1976.
Great choice Jim.
The Refugee album is also very good from 1974 with
The Nice members: Lee Jackson and Brian Davidson.
I used to listen this endlessly on headphones back in the day not too long after is came out. I had "lost track" of it. I rediscovered it...forgot how good it was
History of the I, Brazilian Samba + Relayer Crazyness + Chick Corea Quality Fusion Jazz ( a la leprechaun), all from a brilliant Keyboardist like Moraz.
Loved this album when I was in High School. Still have my original copy and still spin it. Moraz was an underated Artist IMO.
I think this was voted Keyboard Album of the year in 1976 by some music magazine. Just like its predecessor Relayer (with Yes) this is a quite forward-looking record - the Latin drumming was very unusual in the prog rock genre at the time - with dense but funky keyboard/guitar/bass textures (Jeff Berlin is on bass, and Andy Newmark and Alphonse Mouzon on drums!). It's also one of the most pitchbend-heavy albums I know of, but Moraz knows exactly how to use that gadget. :)
Patrick was way ahead of his time with this album from 1975 absolutely love it' first heard this around 1980 subsequently bought the rest of his Solo Albums thereafter 👍looking forward to side two Jim.
Congrats on getting to this one. This is where fusion meets prog and everyone is baffled. Prog when it started was the mix of classical music with rock and later added jazz, folk and other genres - here, Brazilian dance. The weird talking drum sound (you laughed when you heard it) is a Cuica and that was a must see/hear when I went to Brazil in 2012. The album is glorious but probably doesn't bear too much scrutiny. (the vocals are iffy)Just sit back and enjoy side 2. We'll know what you mean.
Yep, I heard the cuica drum a few years ago on Herbie Hancock's "Spider" (from his equally good 1976 album Secrets) and immediately recognized the particular sound.
I've known and loved this Moraz album for forty years - first time I listened through this A side I was quite baffled too. but the last five minutes or so felt really cool, and I decided to give it another listen the next day. After that I was hooked: everything fell into place, more or less, on the second hearing. :)
Jazz and folk were there from the start. The Nice, ELP. KIng Crimson amongst others
Patrick's contribution to YES and the Relayer album is genius, not to mention his playing on Steve Howe's and Chris Squire's solo albums! This one is a lot harder to digest. So much going on it was hard for me to listen to it more than a couple of times.
I have always loved this album and was pretty obsessed with it for, I don't know - 6 months maybe. It needs repeated listenings; lots of them. You can really hear bits and pieces of the influence he had on Relayer the year before. This kick-started my love for modern Brazilian music that has continued until this day. Man, 1975: Olias of Sunhillow, Fish Out of Water, Beginnings, Six Wives of Henry VIII, Ramshackled and this. Possibly Yes' best ever year for album releases! An embarrassment of riches.
It’s insane that they all came out in the same year!
Great choice. This album was one of my favourites back in the 70's even though it didn't get the appreciation it deserved. Maybe it was too wild even to most of the proggers at the time. Moraz did also great job with Refugee, including former Nice-members Lee Jackson and Brian Davison.
The 6th or 7th listen is a dream - where it all falls into place. Jeff Berlin on bass is a beast - amazing musicianship. One of my fav albums of all time.
I've never in my life ever heard anything that crosses over the panorama of styles from around the world as they apply to music. I hear overlapping of South American polyrythmic percussion transitioning to gamelan/Java back and forth, then a proper English interlude followed by beautiful vocal with piano, jazz/rock fusion, etc. It's overwhelming and hard to take in initially but so rewarding to realize someone can do this. Great stuff Jim!
At last!!! A reaction! Thank you.
This album is a keyboard masterpiece
It was was when released
It is now
Love this album! There are some beautiful passages of music, and some divine piano work going on. Beautiful voices and that almost constant percussive background - wonderful stuff!
I got to see Patrick once with Bill Bruford on a riverboat in New Orleans. It was fantastic!
this album is so underrated, it is unlike anything i have ever heard before and i'm so glad that i was blessed enough to hear it
I had a friend in high school who got his hands on this. He played it for me and I just couldn't get into it. Patrick Moraz may not have thought much of his time in Yes, but he did at least get this solo album out of it. Jim, I had to lol at your "What are the Swiss known for other than holy cheese?" Chris Squire, in the YesYears documentary, joked that because Patrick was Swiss it meant he could play well in time. 😀
Here's an interesting factoid: the male vocal is by John McBurnie, who previously had been a member of Jackson Heights, the band Lee Jackson formed after he left The Nice. Jackson Heights came to an end in 1973 when Lee Jackson joined the band Refugee which included none other than Patrick Moraz! Refugee produced 1 very ELP-ish album (and later a live album) but folded when Moraz left to join Yes. I thought I also recognized McBurnie's name in context with fellow synth pioneer Vangelis, and I believe he did provide vocals or maybe lyrics for some of his early solo albums.
I'm not a keyboard player, but at one point during the 1970s I took an electronic music class at a city college. I spent a lot of my free (after hours) time then in the sound lab, where among other things we had an ElectroComp synthesizer that was the generic equivalent of an AARP 2500. I became enthralled at all the sounds you could get using ADSR and filters and spent hours playing with the synthesizer, so I can totally understand where actual keyboardists like Moraz could so excellently immerse themselves in synthesis.
Another keyboard player who did spectacular work on synthesizer in the 1970s was Larry Fast, who albumwise called himself Synergy. I would highly recommend his album Electronic Realizations for Rock Orchestra.
I love the possibilities of ASDR, filters and the use of LFOs to sync them to. Just endlessly entertaining and the creative possibilities are infinite!
@@JimNewstead I was happy that only a few people from the class were as into off hours time in the lab. It gave us more hours to spend there, me mostly on the synthesizer.
My term paper (a 3 minute reel of tape), which employed lots of synth, tape reverb, loops, phasing, splicing and tape reversal, was titled "The Electronic Ambulance Adventure," got and A and praise from the class instructor. 😁
Love it!!! Too bad Moraz never rose to this level again…
Yes I bought his next three albums on the strength of this one, but never came close to this one
Didn’t he? Oh well. This is great though!
His 3rd lp is very good, and his piano/drums duet albums with Bill Bruford are excellent too. Pity he wasted a decade playing pop with the Moody Blues 🤔
Great album Scot!
@@jeffschielka7845 And Side Two is even better. As it contains my favorite Yes solo track: Dancing Now!!! So good it hurts.
Interesting that you related it to Olias of Sunhillow as it very much sat in my record collection and in my listening pattern in the later seventies with Olias and Chris Squires ‘Fish out of water’. I always considered these albums as not quite as good as Yes but not far behind and would slot them in between listening to Yes as sort of musical punctuation.
Oh what fun! I very much look forward to this. You picked the perfect selection for the beginning sequence. Very festive. Best years of our lives. How time flies.
Ah one of my faves, packed with great Ideas. Out in the Sun is also v good :)
Oh yes. In a busy life and not knowing the song or album at all it. I’m not waiting for the “organ bit” or the raindrops or whatnot. It’s a nice one to pick up and give proper time to listen. When the kids are asleep def. I also long ago began to rate Gates as my favorite Yes song. What makes that whole album special is Pat. I may watch Gates or Sound Chaser later. I always felt a sort of frosty iciness to it.
This is a piece of work almost on a par. Probably on a par in places. And I’ve not done side 2 yet.
Great album. Amazing lineup on this LP. Since you have the record, you can follow along by referring to the sleeve. On it, Patrick has hand written notes that describe what's going on musically in great detail.
I remember first hearing Cachaça on a yes members solo compilation called “Affirmative”. I thought it was absolutely bonkers then, and it led me to this fantastic album.
This is better than I could have hoped for❤
Great album. You can easily see how Moraz influenced Relayer from this music.
I’ve never heard this before!😮 And I loved fusion back then! Has snippets of Return To Forever, methinks. With a hint of Weather Report. Brilliant find, wherever you got it from!
So glad that there is a channel like yours Jim, especial with all the crazy stuff going on in the world.
Thanks so much! I’m loving the channel more and more every day! Glad it resonates with you too
Hi Jim! Been looking forward to this. IMHO this album is a masterpiece and doesn't get the credit it deserves.
I like it!
Oh cool! I've anticipated you doing this fantastic concept album for awhile. Patrick Moraz is immensely impressive.
Pretty cool eh Jim. Kinda like a sound track to documentary. Most of the sounds were never heard before so to mold it into a piece of music is quite brilliant and borderline mad. Love the imitation Anderson vocals.
😎
Ooo...
I'll need to listen later, as I have medical appointments today. But, I'm glad you gave this a go!
Hello, I hope your appointments went fine !
@@gabiesiren
So far, so good. Just annual lady parts exams...
@@IllumeEltanin ahah that's boring !
Back again! Jey your comment about DANCE music struck a chord! As a child raised on R&B & a teen on Prog-Fusion music in the 70's, I've always wished that Funk & Soul had continued to be more Progressive. In many cases it tried during the early 70's. Bands like FUNKADELIC, CHICAGO, early EARTH, WIND & FIRE, early 70's MARVIN GAYE, WAR and even THE TEMPTATIONS with their "Psychedelic Shack" album seemed to have ALL taken the RED LSD PILL and started fusing various styles of the day!
"The Story of I" - bossa-nova-come-jazz-fusion-come-progressive rock-come-classical music. 🙂
A great example of an artist combining EDM with melody and orchestration is Tom Jenkinson, aka Squarepusher, notably the album Hard Normal Daddy.
Hey Jim! Patrick! You'll like this one.😎
So far so good, it’s a bit overwhelming though!
👍
@@JimNewstead Just think of Gates of Delirium!😎
Hello Jim, I bought this when it first came out and only played it a couple times, so thanks for the reminder.
A forgotten classic 🤘🏻
A group of friends used to listen to this all the time in the mid-'80s. We used to jokingly refer to the middle section of this side as the "Nickelodeon Symphony" since it sounded like the promo music of the kids' channel at the time.
Hello Jim! Nice shout out to Red Dwarf, I've seen every episodes and specials! It was an epic entertaining space comedy!
As part of the Yes solo albums, this one has always been at the top of my list, with Chris and Jon very close.
That's a deep dive of the cover for sure Jim. 😂Walt
My first listen...I never had this......Walt
Hope you enjoy this! 👍🏼
These Yes guys were musical giants.
Yep, Moraz is an amazing and often overlooked keyboard hero - his work on Relayer is out of this world! :) I don't think anyone else from Yes guested on this album, though there are several great players from the funk and fusion worlds - Ray Gomez on guitar, a young Jeff Berlin on bass and Alphonse Mouzon and Andy Newmark on drums! There's also a sampled recording of ritual chant by an Amazon indian tribe on side 2! (in a segment depicting a burial)
@@louise_rose that sounds fantastic! I look forward to hearing side 2! I’ve listened to Yes for over 30 years and it’s strange that this particular solo album has eluded me all this time.
@@bachmibm Yes, this album really is one of a kind! Moraz had earlier connections to Brazil, he had been working as in-house composer, arranger and pianist for a ballet company from Rio and had toured widely with them in the early seventies, before he joined Yes. There's a great deal of Brazilian percussion on this album as you will notice much of it overdubbed live in Rio de Janeiro, and a lot of inspiration from the rich musical heritage of the country (I figure he must have heard Eumir Deodato's early albums).
@@louise_rose fascinating! Thank you for this information!
" He of Yes and Moody Blues fame?" Jim! You mean you are unaware of his prog trio Refugee with Keith Emerson's former rhythm section from The Nice? Oh, you simply must hear that record - it's where he was when Yes manager Brian Lane poached him.
Of course I’m unaware!
A must listen Refugee
Wow...on my list ...this is amazing!....cheers
Thanks for doing this one Jim. I know that Olias and Fish are both great albums and have many champions but, as far as those Yes solo albums go, this is imho, the absolute dog’s privates! The other two lps are ambitious and grand but are definitely ‘of their time’ while the Story Of I, almost half a century later, is still full of ‘what the f**k is happening?’ moments 😁
You’re quite correct, it is bonkers, but that’s what makes it so great. Anderson, Squire and Howe may have been happy to be ‘Close To the Edge’ but Patrick, when left to his own devices, would routinely jump off the edge and damn the consequences. I rather think that’s why he didn’t last longer in Yes, he was too extreme even for them, and they were glad to welcome back Good Old Rick.
In fact, i’d go as far to say that Moraz, with his exotic, cosmopolitan background, was a far more varied, experimental player and composer than both Wakeman and Emerson, although Moraz had the reputation of being the ‘eternal replacement’ via his stints with Refugee (a second hand Nice), Yes and Moody Blues, all of which, to varying degrees ended in tears.
I’m sure i read somewhere that Moraz was actually born on a ship in international waters, so he was a true ‘citizen of the world’ and that comes across in his solo work, when his imagination is unbound. Indeed it seems as if he had so many ideas that he struggled to pack them all in, and many a time he finds a lovely melody or stonking groove and then tosses them away after too short a time, because he’s impatient to move onto something else. The wonderful, Oriental style dance beat on side 1 is a case in point. Mike Oldfield would have worked variations of that for at least 10 minutes (and it would’ve been great).
I know i’m waffling on but i love this album! His 3rd, self titled lp is great too, the theme being the battle between the ‘primitive’ and ‘civilisation’, which naturally is “Primitivisation” 🙄 well worth a listen anyway, with the Brazilian percussion having another good thwacking.
Prepare to have your eardrums burst by the opening of Side 2. Cheers 👍
Well said!😎
What a comment! Thanks Mick, I appreciate your enthusiasm and love for this music. I love the knowledge you have and can share too. Thanks so much for that.
@@JimNewstead ditto and returned back atcha 👍
@@JimNewstead just thought of another ‘mad as a box of frogs’ artist you might like, Japanese composer/percussionist Stomu Yamash’ta. Albums like Red Buddha, Man From the East, Raindog and more. Unique and chaotic stuff. He also made a more ‘orthodox’ jazz-rock lp ‘Go’ with Steve Winwood and Santana drummer Mike Shrieve. (There was a follow up Go Too, and also Go Live). You’re probably more likely to find vinyl copies of Go than his other stuff, but very well worth searching out.
Others worth a mention: Khan - Space Shanties. Early Steve Hillage band. Great lp…and if you haven’t done Steve’s 70s solo stuff then you’ll be in Gongozric heaven.
Arzachel…Hillage is on this too, with his old band Egg. Recorded in one session in’69 for extra cash.
Have you done any Can yet? 👍
I love this LP. The Yes members produced four superb albums that year. Only Steve's didn't make the grade.
I bought this when it first came out, it was a bit too far out there for me at the time although there were parts I liked. I found his next album "Out in the Sun" more accessible
I have that too, maybe that’ll get a spin on the channel too.
Jim, The Running Man with Arnold Schwarzenegger, the synopsis, is he is hunted by some unusual characters and it's broadcast and wagered on around the world on how long he will last being hunted. Of course Arnold beats them all! I've seen Patrick live with Yes in 1976 amazing keyboardist, and in 1978 with the Moody Blues on the Octave tour. He got into a messy lawsuit with The Moody Blues.
Enjoyable listen. I love keyboard heavy prog. This is quite Zappa-ish. Maybe a bit too eclectic for my tastes.
For another, albeit more conventional, concept prog album try The Whirlwind by Transatlantic. Morse's keyboards and Stolt's soaring guitar are on another level
It’s coming soon my friend 👍🏼😁
i've been trying to learn intermezzo on piano but it is so hard!
yep ,utterly bonkers . Like all the best Prog it defies conventions.
This sounds a little like Zappa. ELP, and even some of Umaguma from floyd. Theres no real direction and I found that Patrick never played the music of Yes the same way twice. Even his live Relayer performance was off, compared to the studio recoding. He is a really trained keyboardist, but I always found him hard to follow.
Have you done Relayer by Yes? Couldn’t see it?
Found!
Cool 👌
Somehow, somewhere, I've heard this before. A lot is alas to my ear rather trite and mimics Yes in a somewhat vacuous manner... I feel a lot of the jollity is forced, artificial / plastic. Fake fun... ie saccharin. Pah! :(
...perhaps I should throw a "Bah, Humbug!" in there too, to really get into the seasonal spirit. Just checked - I suspect I heard parts this c. '79 from the album "Patrick Moraz"
Well, it is early December!
You should check out Refugee as well.
His name rang a bell but my memory ceased. You told me before I could look it up: Yes and Moody Blues. Swiss so I immediately thought of Andreas Vollenweider the harp player; I have a few albums by him.
Never heard Patrick’s solo work.
It almost sounds like a real movie soundtrack.
I cannot say I’m impressed. It’s a hodgepodge of styles, no structure at all.
I like the Tentacles very much, their music still has structure. This is totally bonkers and I’m getting tired of it.
No, not for me…again.
Hope you enjoy Side two better!
Uh, you go on ahead. I'll meet you somewhere on the other side of this one. 🤣
Hahaha! You bet, love you, man! 😂
Don't get it twisted but, URI.
IMU.
Er… what?
Lacks the voice, lyrics and melody lines of Jon Anderson.