Instrumental
International relevance: **
A real oddity, this. The music itself is rather straight ahead jazz funk but what sets it apart from other jazz funk albums is that the main instrument is steel pans! Pannist Rudy Smith left Trinidad for Sweden in the late 1960's and played with plenty of Swedish musicians including Bernt Rosengren, Ingemar Olsson and Ewert Ljusberg. His Modern Sound outfit went through several changes, from quartet to quintet before becoming Modern Sound Corporation in the late 70's. While steel pans produce a sound that's extremely annoying to me, Smith uses them more like a piano making them fit surprisingly well into the music. The pans work particularly well on the African flavoured title track, Joe Zawinul penned ”Mercy, Mercy, Mercy”, the modal ”Ursia” and their take on Herbie Mann's ”Memphis Underground”.
Internationally sounding as it is, the
album had an international becoming as well. Recorded with musicians
from Finland, Ghana, Triniad, Barbados and Surinam, it was recorded
in Stockholm and produced by arranger, trumpeter etc Lasse
Samulesson and released only in Finland! It will never be a favourite
album of mine, but I must admit it's much better than I ever expected
it to be, with some rather appealing moments.
A revamped band
released one further album in 1978 (as Modern Sound Corporation)
through the Swedish branch of low budget label K-Tel.
Full album playlist
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