Monday, October 8, 2012

MAMBA – Mamba (Sonet, 1979)

Instrumental 
International relevance: ***

Housed in a stunning sleeve, the cover art is the best thing about this album. Musically it's typical jazz funk fusion that was popular in Sweden in the latter half of the 70's. Extremely competent with a strong Egba vibe, but also utterly dull. Sweden was obviously very proud of its many fusionists back then, but no matter how much we patted our own jazz funk heads we rarely came up with anything above average. OK, so ”Liten vit funk” and ”Älgen dansar” are decent tracks, but why I should listen to Swedish run-of-the-mill bands when I can listen to Miles Davis, Mahavishnu or even early Weather Report if that's what I need is beyond me. And why I should listen to a second rate Egba when the real Egba bore me stiff most of the time is an even greater mystery. But if you're a fan of Swedish jazz funk, then ”Mamba” is worth the effort to seek it out.

One Mamba track is found on the ”Between or Beyond the Northern Lights” compilation of Nordic fusion released in 2002.

Worth noting is that guitar player Mats Norrefalk had previosly been in Saga along with November's Christer Stålbrandt. Norrefalk also played on Thomas Wiehe's 1978 album ”Två vindar”.
 
Full album

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