Blaze and Bloom Live in Japan
Blaze and Bloom Live in Japan (Corrado Rustici, 2014)
Blaze and Bloom Live in Japan is a fabulous jazz-rock fusion album by a legendary guitar player and producer from Italy, Corrado Rustici. The live album features a mix of high energy fusion loaded with remarkable solos, masterful progressive rock, and even world music elements.
The album opens with Sushumna’s Dance, a piece where the listener is treated to a series of outstanding guitar solos. Corrado Rustici uses various techniques to modify his guitar sound, delivering a rich palette of musical colors. There is a bass solo but I couldn’t figure out who was playing it until I saw the video version and it was the keyboard player; truly amazing.
Next comes the bluesy ‘Lazarus Pain’ from Rustici’s album “Deconstruction of a Postmodern Musician” where his passionate guitar bends notes in fascinating way. The piece ends with a delightful slide guitar section.
On track 3, ‘The Princess and the Frog’ Corrado Rustici shifts to power rock, skillfully mixing guitar techniques and sounds, delivering kick ass solos.
It’s hard to determine who’s playing what on ‘100 Famous Notes.’ Corrado Rustici’s guitar sounds like a synthesizer until it switches to his style, similar to Alan Holdsworth’s. The keyboard arrangements and guitar delivery here are closer to symphonic progressive rock than fusion.
Corrado Rustici was the leader of Italy’s famed Nova, one the finest fusion bands in Europe. ‘Vimana’ was a well-known nova piece and Rustici brings it back with exciting new guitar sounds.
The music calms down considerably on ‘Chiudi gli occhi,’ also from the album “Deconstruction of a Postmodern Musician” which is one of the most beautiful pieces on the live album. Keyboardist Peter Vettese gets an opportunity to showcase his talent with a superb classically-influenced piano introduction. The piano gives way to exquisite vocals accompanied by keyboards, guitars and soft percussion. This piece would feel at home in any first class progressive rock album. The final piano part with masterful drum accompaniment by Steve Smith is truly memorable.
‘Tantrum to Blind’ adds funk to the jazz-rock program, with irresistible rhythms and scorching guitar synthesizer. Later, Peter Vettese performs a masterful electric organ solo and gives way to more superb guitar solos.
The tempo slows down on Track 8, ‘Spirals of Light.’ On this piece, ambient keyboards surround spacy processed guitar and progress into symphonic progressive rock with captivating guitar melodies that at times seem close to Andalusian music.
The album ends with the longest track, ‘Loud Cloud.’ Here, Steve Smith has the spotlight. The piece begins with an exciting drum solo and hand percussion exhibition as well as konakol (Indian vocal percussion) that lead into an ensemble section with dueling electric piano and fiery guitar solos with an epic finale.
The double disc set comes with a DVD featuring 4 of the live performances, Sushumna’s Dance, Vimana, Chiudi gli occhi and Loud Cloud.
The impressive lineup on the album features recorded in the spring of 2010 features Corrado Rustici on guitars; Steve Smith (Journey, Steps Ahead, Vital Information) on drums; and Peter Vettese (Jethro Tull, Annie Lennox, Seal) on keyboards.
Born in Naples, Corrado Rustici was the guitarist and leader of Cervello, one of the finest Italian progressive rock bands in the 1970s. The group only released one legendary album titled album titled Melos. Rustici also played on Osanna’s “Landscape of Life” with his older brother Danilo.
In 1974 he joined fusion group Nova, with whom he moved to London. They recorded four albums on the Arista label, Blink, Vimana, Wings of love and Sun City. Rustici later moved to the United States.
In 1985 he returned to Italy where he produced some of the most influential artists in Italian history (Zucchero, Elisa, Francesco De Gregori, Claudio Baglioni, Andrea Bocelli, Negramaro and Luciano Ligabue).
Corrado Rustici’s discography includes Melos (Ricordi, 1973) by Cervello; Landscape of Life (Fonit-Cetra, 1974) by Osanna; Blink (Arista, 1975) by Nova; Vimana (Arista, 1976) by Nova; Wings of Love (Arista, 1977) by Nova; Sun City (Arista, 1978) by Nova; The Dance of Life (Atlantic, 1979) by Narada M. Walden; Victory (Atlantic, 1980) by Narada M. Walden; The Heartist (Visa, 1995) by Corrado Rustici; Deconstruction of a postmodern musician (Sugar, 2006) by Corrado Rustici; and Blaze and Bloom (2014) by Corrado Rusticci Trio.
Blaze and Bloom Live in Japan is an exceptionally good album that delivers state of the art jazz-rock fusion by three outstanding musicians.