Front Burner (The Rodger Fox Big Band) (LP 2417 - 2418)

The Rodger Fox Big Band  Time Piece (Vinyl, Ode Records, 1978) ****  

The Rodger Fox Band and Midge Marsden  Let The Good Times Roll (Vinyl, Circular Records, 1985) ****  

Genre: Jazz, NZ music

Places I remember: Real Groovy Records

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Front Burner (sadly, neither songs are on Spotify or YouTube)

Gear costume: One Night Affair

Active compensatory factors: I remember seeing Rodger Fox's big band at a music festival a few years after this album came out. That blast of sound is a great memory.

This is an excellent sampler of Fox's various passions - big band (Open Sesame), jazz rock (One Night Affair), and jazz fusion (Time Piece).

The second album is a collaboration with NZ blues exponent Midge Marsden. It's excellent. A bit more cohesive than Time Piece, but still featuring Rodger on trombone fronting a big band (four trumpets, three saxes among the crowd).

Where do they all belong? Check out The 1860 Band entry.

Keep that same old feeling (The 1960 Band) (LP 2415)

The 1860 Band  The 1860 (Vinyl, Ode Records, 1978) ****  

Genre: Jazz fusion, NZ music 

Places I remember: Real Groovy Records

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Us

Gear costume: Porky 

Active compensatory factors: A great run down of the band can be found here. Apparently, this album, their 1978 debut and swansong, is 'now a very sought-after item by rare groove hunters the world over'.

Weird how that happens. It's certainly well crafted, well played jazz fusion from some great NZ musicians, including the Winch brothers and Rodger Fox.

In the spirit of the times they trot out some pop cover versions as well as the fusion - so Fire and Rain gets a Manfred Mann's Earth Band style treatment (which means goodness in my world), and there's California Dreaming as well.

Where do they all belong? A real one-off, but see The Rodger Fox Big Band coming up in a few posts for another album featuring him from 1978.