Juan Carlos Calderon - Soleá (1978) [Reissue 2011]

Born 1938 the artist began as a jazz pianist, at least I think he did, became the leader of an easy listening orchestra in the earlier half of the seventies then, similar to the case of Herb Pilhofer, and knocked a masterpiece called Solea out of the ballpark at the end of that decade-- at the ancient (musically) age of 50.

The album incorporates just about everything the human mind has musically imagined, with folk, classical orchestral, fusion, jazz, and sung (female) passages. As I've said before, it's as if everything were merged into one gorgeous whole, all artistic genres happily cohabiting-- imagine having abstract expressionism, impressionism, and renaissance masters all in one painting. That this can be done with music (not art) is just mindblowing. Because of the power of its imaginative base it's similar to other fusion compositions like Arif's The Journey, Mahavishnu's Apocalypse record, etc., and definitely just as compelling with its vision. The only drawback is the short length of the whole-- you can see that it's under 32 minutes. And it seems like no Spanish album is complete without the requisite flamenco chord changes (e,g, E minor, F, G) but here the folky tropes are thankfully kept to a minimum. So it seems there are two distinct drawbacks. Maybe more, depending on your tastes.

The third track called Oration incorporates the strands of library music/OST (wordless female vocals), the easy listening arrangements he was clearly adept at (the horn sections), the excitement of fusion instrumentation in a very warm and tender melody that builds in intensity as it crescendos