Imaginary Voyage

Artist: Jean-Luc Ponty
Label: Atlantic / Wea
Category: Music

Average customer rating:

Media: Audio CD
Number Of Discs: 1

UPC: 075678153525
EAN: 0075678153525
ASIN: B000002I93

Release Date: 1990-10-25

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Listmania:

A Prog fan lists his Favorite Jazz/Jazz Rock Albums
My favorite albums of 1976.
my favorite cds (in no specific order)
Darv's Prog 25
Jazz Fusion thatz not 4 weenies!
My favorite cds! whoo! (GOOD music..)
The Best Jazz Artist: Jean-Luc Ponty
Essential Instrumental Music You Should Own
Don't Ignore: Great Overlooked Albums

Tracks:

New Country
The Gardens Of Babylon
Wandering On The Milky Way (Violin Solo)
Once Upon A Dream
Tarantula
Imaginary Voyage Part l
Imaginary Voyage Part ll
Imaginary Voyage Part lll
Imaginary Voyage Part lV

Similar Items:

Enigmatic Ocean
Cosmic Messenger
Mystical Adventures
Civilized Evil
A Taste for Passion

Customer Reviews:

Classic Jean-Luc.......2006-11-09

Had this on vinyl ages ago. Recently purchased the CD and it is as great as the first time I heard it all those years ago. If you like this kind of music, you will love Jean-Luc Ponty. I must for any decent collection.

A great album of jazz rock with proggy overtones.......2006-07-20

This 1976 album opens with the track New Country, which has somewhat of a country hoedown feel to it - complete with a "foot-stomping" bass drum/bass guitar pattern and the lightning fast picking of the acoustic guitar and Jean Luc Ponty's "country music on speed" fiddling style. An odd way to open this otherwise proggy jazz rock album perhaps, but the track is pretty neat. The rest of the album however, is really fantastic and blends elements of jazz with rock, along with an admixture of prog rock and a tiny pinch of psychedelic rock too (the spacey and heavily echoed/phased violin solo instrumental "Wandering on the Milky Way" is a good example of this). As a huge prog fan and a casual jazz rock fan I found the blend to be very listenable and extremely enjoyable.

The musicians on this album include virtuoso violinist and band leader Jean Luc Ponty (he played on Frank Zappa's Hot Rats album (1969) and a few mid-70s Mahavishnu Orchestra albums), bassist Tom Fowler (he played on Frank Zappa's One Size Fits All album (1975)), solid studio musician Daryl Stuermer on guitars, Billy Cobham inspired drummer Mark Craney, and keyboardist Allan Zavod (mini-moog, string synthesizer, acoustic piano). I should note that Jean Luc also played Hammond organ and synthesizers too. Come to think of it, synthesizers are featured pretty heavily on this album. All of the musicians are fantastic and although I generally like Daryl's approach and playing, he sometimes "overplays" on the electric guitar (he also did this with Genesis during their live shows). It is not distracting mind you; I just do not feel that his "fast" playing has the same organic feel that virtuoso guitarists John McLaughlin or Alan Holdsworth got when they were burning up and down the fretboard.

The griping aside, the music on this album is just fantastic. It is a perfect blend of jazz rock and prog with enough dynamic contrast, melodic development, and above all else, unchecked virtuosity to keep any proghead thoroughly entertained. My favorite piece of course is the 19'55" multi-movement "Imaginary Voyage" suite. This really is a great track that covers a range of moods and features some excellent playing by all of the band members along with extremely intricate ensemble work - I won't bother going into the numbers of meter shifts per measure but there are a lot.

All in all this is a great album of jazz-rock with an admixture of proggy elements that features the violin as a solo instrument and would make a fine addition to the jazz rock or prog rock album collection. Highly recommended along with the excellent follow-up album Enigmatic Ocean (1977) and other jazz rock albums such as Romantic Warrior (Return to Forever, 1976), Birds of Fire (Mahavishnu Orchestra, 1973), and Cross Collateral (Passport, 1975).

A Fantastic Voyage.......2005-11-17

Long ago, I got the LP "Imaginary Voyage," and played it until it was worn out. Then I got the cassette tape and played that until it was worn out. Right now, I'm working on the CD version of the album, and am far from tired of listening to it. This is, in my opinion, the best album that Jean-Luc Ponty has recorded: the best variety of music and the best that he has written. Starting with "New Country" and moving into the dreamy "Gardens of Babylon" and "Wandering On The Milky Way," into the urgencies of "Once Upon A Dream" and then into the sharp "Tarantula," Ponty displays a variety of emotions with his mastery of the electric violin. He then tops that with the epic 4-part "Imaginary Voyage," which culminates in the wonderful eight-minute "Part IV." Jean-Luc Ponty has been around a long time and has a lot of recordings, and if you haven't heard this album before, get it. It's definitely worth buying.

(As an aside, I had heard about this album from watching "Soundstage," an old PBS show from long ago, when they had an episode called "Fiddlers Three," featuring Doug Kershaw, Itzahk Perlman and Jean-Luc Ponty. A wonderful show, showing three different types of violin performances: Ponty, so smooth and even in using the bow, even in fast songs, it seemed like he wouldn't break a sweat. Perlman played classical music, his movements so precise, sharp and clean, carefully and exacting in his bow work. Kershaw played Cajun country music, all elbows and movement, the strings on his bow breaking from his sawing motions on the violin, it appeared so sloppy compared to the other two but sounded so good. At the end, all three combined on one song, playing various parts in their own style. A great show with great talent using the same instrument but playing diverse ways.)

Enjoyably undemanding fusion.......2005-04-09

The violin had a bit of an image problem in rock music. Despite the best efforts of Darryl Way and Eddie Jobson in Curved Air, and that annoying Graham Smith fellow in Van Der Graaf, it could never quite shake off its associations with the school orchestra and the tedium of compulsory music lessons.

Jean-Luc Ponty made the instrument cool with his participation on one of the coolest rock albums made, Frank Zappa's HOT RATS of 1970. After this brief spell in the limelight, we assumed he had returned to his jazz roots, inspired by Stephan Grapelli. Then suddenly in 1976, just as jazz-rock hit maturity, UK radio presenters such as Alan Freeman and Derek Jewell were playing tracks from a new Ponty solo album -- IMAGINARY VOYAGE. Of course, they didn't have time to play more than a couple of tracks, but helpfully, the first two tracks on this album were very radio-friendly. Even once you knew the album well, those were the two tracks you selected when you wanted to make compilation tapes.

That remains my view today, pretty much. Actually one of the advantages of CD is that, if you've always been a lazy type, you get to hear what was Side Two on the LP that you could rarely be bothered to turn over. Of a similar structure to Focus's MOVING WAVES, the LP put five concise tracks on Side One, and then a single extended instrumental piece on Side Two.

This is all crossover jazz-rock stuff. If you like early Bill Bruford (e.g. ONE OF A KIND) or Return to Forever (NO MYSTERY), you'll find much to like about IMAGINARY VOYAGE, although this album doesn't quite meet the same standard set by Bruford and RTF.

The backing musicians include the usual high-calibre performers of the 1970s: e.g. Tom Fowler from Zappa's band on bass, and Daryl Stuermer is very good on sparkling guitar (before he went all commercial by joining Phil Collins).

The packaging is without extras: Rhino have simply copied across the LP's cover art, and re-typed the album information. It's not remastered, and the bass is pretty murky.

The album did pretty well in 1976/77, and most of us who bought it went on to buy his next, ENIGMATIC OCEAN, but stopped there.

This is about as enjoyably undemanding as jazz-rock got, and well worth adding to your collection.

Great Fiddling Around!.......2002-10-26

Imaginary Voyage is awesome. Jean Luc Ponty shows that there is such a thing as violin jazz, but his sound is one that can't be pigeonholed. Just listen to county and western influenced 'New Gardens' and it will have you bobbing your head and tapping your feet. The slower paced 'The Gardens of Babylon' is just as powerful. I think that every cut is a winner. Imaginary Voyage Parts I through IV just flows from one cut to the next. You can hear the instruments talk to one another. This is one of my favorite CD's. Try listening to it through earphones. Awesome! Highly recommended.Vannie(~.~)

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