Sunday, July 29, 2018

EGBA – The 1970's albums

Sweden's leading fusion band of the 70's, founded in 1971 and active through the 80's, with one stray album released in 2004. Their name stands for Electronic Groove & Beat Academy but they're exclusively refered to by the acronym EGBA. The band was centered around trumpeter Ulf Adåker and had a changing line-up over the years, at one point or another including guitarist Jan Tolf, Göran Lagerberg, Amadu Jarr, pianist Harald Svensson (Resa, Häxmjölk), drummer Åke Eriksson (Wasa Express) and Per Tjernberg (Archimedes Badkar). A reformed EGBA is still performing.

EGBA (Grammofonverket, 1974)
Instrumental, other languages 
International relevance: ***
 
Their first album presented all of the band's characteristics, jazz fusion inspired by the likes of Miles Davis and Chick Corea, with funky grooves providing the foundation on the heavier tracks, with a distinct African influence to boot, most notably on”Gbinti”. ”Capsiloni”, written by drummer Claes Wang, veers towards Archimedes Badkar. ”Egba” is one of the finer examples of Swedish fusion thanks to its diversity and inspired playing. Great cover too.

Jungle-Jam (Sonet, 1976)
Instrumental, other languages
International relevance: ***

Egba's second album adds a bit of Latin music to the mix, and takes the funk one step further. The album unfortunately lacks a lot of the charm that makes their debut enjoyable. This is pretty much a standard funk fusion album with the urge to explore and discover largely substituted with technical precision.

Live at Montmartre (Sonet, 1977)
Instrumental, other languages
International relevance: ***

Better than ”Jungle-Jam”, probably because it was recorded live, with Egba feeding off the audience at the Montmartre jazz club in Copenhagen. Here they expanded their palette of styles to include reggae on ”Satobe”. Still not on par with their debut however.

Amigos Latinos (Sonet, 1978)
Instrumental, other languages 
International relevance: ***
 
Just like the title suggests this is an album with a stronger emphasis on Latin influences. It's also an excruciatingly dull album, with fusion meaning a mathematically precise show-off. I find it extremely hard to sit through without a steadily increasing level of irritation.

Bryter upp! (MNW, 1979)
Instrumental
International relevance: ***

A literal translation of the album title would be ”breaking up”, and while not exactly true, it saw Egba change to a smaller line-up and also a new label. The title also suggests the band was taking off in a new direction which is partly true as ”Bryter upp!” is less hysterical than ”Amigos Latinos”, a little more reflective. It still fails to satisfy unless you have a high tolerance for their kind of music.

”Progglådan” features two Egba tracks recorded for the Swedish Radio in 1972, and three more from a 1978 session.

I can see why they're highly regarded by fusion fans for their passion and skills making them much better than many of their peers, even if they're not to my liking.

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