Hamburger Concerto

Artist: Focus
Label: Jvc Japan
Category: Music

Average customer rating:

Format: Import
Media: Audio CD
Number Of Discs: 1
EAN: 4988002420445
ASIN: B00005NSAY

Release Date: 2001-11-20

Hamburger Concerto

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Netherlands

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| Rock | Styles | Music

Progressive Rock

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Tracks:

Delitiae Musicae
Harem Scarem
Cathedrale de Strasbourg
Birth
Hamburger Concert: Starter/Rare/Medium I/Medium II/Well Done/One ...
Early Birth
Hamburger Concerto: Medium I
Hamburger Concerto: Medium II
Hamburger Concerto: Well Done
Hamburger Concerto: One for the Road
Early Birth

Album Details

Japanese Limited Version featuring an LP Style Slipcase Cover. Digital K2 Remastering.

Customer Reviews:

Medieval prog rock - actually new agey space jazz-rock fusion 15 years ahead of its time.......2006-04-26

This masterpiece opens with medieval instruments (lute? flute), then jumps into rocking boogie woogie 2nd piece, with syncopation and time siganture changes, piano & guitar with solid drums and bass behind, then in comes a Hammond organ. The instrumentals remind me a bit of Triumvirat crossed with a little straight-ahead Gentle Giant. Akkerman and Van Leer trade off between keyboards and guitars. Thougthful, well done (no pun intended).

The pieces sometimes have a Pat Metheny-esque light jazz feel that predates his arrival on the music scene by about 5 years, that mixes a jazzy guitar-driven chord structure with interspersed keyboard work (having renaissance, baroque, and medieval elements--harpsichord, lute, etc.) on "La Cathedral", then in comes a heavy drum beat and muted (somewhat funky) electric guitar exchanging riffs with a Hammond organ. Then, wafts of flute, almost Tull-ish in feel (on "Birth").

I found this particular Japanese release at HMV (or was it Tower) in Shibuya in Tokyo a few years back. The sonic quality, as well as the packaging, is nice. There is an insert, but unless you read Japanese, it won't be of much interest, as there is no English translation. There's also no separate jewel box insert with album cover; it's all one unit (as it says above).

The song selection here in this Amazon web page is all buggled. The track listings are (as listed on the insert I have):

Delitae Musicae 1:13
Harem Scarem 5:52
La Cathedrale de Strasbourg 5:00
Birth 7:46
Hamburger Concert 20:20
Starter
Rare
Medium I
Medium II
Well Done
One for the Road
(these are *not* individual tracks on this CD)
Early Birth 2:54

This is really a great prog CD that strongly hints of different genres, some that won't evolve into ful-blown ones for another decade (the light jazz-new age movement that morphed into existence in the late 70s/early 80s with the likes of Wyndham Hill and Narada). But what these later blended genres don't have is a distinctly progressive rock underpinning. A bit of Tull, Gentle Giant, Triumvirat, but also a little bit of Pat Metheny, and others too numberous to name from the Wyndham Hill stable of artists of the 1980s. Thoroughly confused?? Don't be. After all, it's a prog album from one of the unsung prog prioneers of the early 1970s.

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