Let’s review the ground rules here. The Mystery Date song is not necessarily something I believe to be good. So feel free to rip it or praise it. Rather the song is something of interest due to the artist, influences, time period… Your job is to decipher as much as you can about the artist without research. Who do you think it is? Or, Who do you think it sounds like? When do you think it was recorded? Etc…
If you know who it is, don’t spoil it for the rest. Anyone who knows it can play the “mockcarr option.” (And I’ve got a hunch that there are a lot who know this one.) This option is for those of you who just can’t hold your tongue and must let everyone know just how in-the-know you are by calling it. So if you know who it is and want everyone else to know that you know, email Mr. Moderator at mrmoderator [at] rocktownhall [dot] com. If correct we will post how brilliant you are in the Comments section.
The real test of strength though is to guess as close as possible without knowing. Ready, steady, go!
NOTE: Although representative of the times, this tracks is not typical of the rest of the tracks on the album on which it appears, which is also keeping with the times. Also, it’s not so much the artist who’s our Mystery Date but one of the band members.
My guess: Cornershop x Medeski, Martin and Wood and divided by George Harrison. However, Mr. Royale walked in, heard it, and thinks he knows it. I will email you separately.
It sounds like some of the stuff on Soul Jazz’s new krautrock anthology Deutshe Elektronische Musik, esp the combination of flute and sitar. But that very jazzy guitar about 2/3 of the way through might seem out of place in that context.
It sounds like someone got a sitar, kind of learned how to play it and the band needed two hours worth of something to fill in their album, then noticed that they’d need yet another hour and made a song that sounds like wind chimes at the beginning and tacked it on. That was a long three hours!
2K is probably right about the newly purchased sitar scenario. This tune is from the band’s proclaimed move into new territory. Other songs on the album aren’t too much different from what they would end up doing, but the musician you will know would go onto do much different music.
The jazzy guitar that BigSteve noted and that Mr. Royale guessed offlist will get you a little closer to where you need to go. The band had some interest in that area, and the musician who would go onto greater things kept some jazz chops in his bag of tricks.
To other guessers: Mr. Royale guessed John McLaughlin.
I guess this Mystery Date is too generic to inspire speculation. I’ll let anyone who cares to think about it for a little longer, then I’ll reveal. Sorry, folks.
Leftovers from Gabor Szabo’s lp Jazz Raga?
One would think so, misterioso, but the guitar player in this band would go onto massive success in the pop-rock world without ever touching his sitar again, as far as I can tell.
This least-intriguing Mystery Date ever was Zoot Money, from their mildly “psychedelic” album, Transitions. The guitarist was Andy Summers, who also played with Eric Burdon’s New Animals in the late-60s and would later play with a little band called The Police. I’ll try to remember to post a couple of the more representative songs from the album. They’re like the stuff from that Four Seasons’ psych album.