"Flamingo Sky" is the last to date studio album from Danish percussionist and composer Marilyn Mazur. Born in NYC to Polish and African-American parents and living in Denmark from she was a child, Marilyn played with some leading American jazz artists icluding Miles Davis late 80s band (never recorded though with him). On her solo albums Marilyn mixes world music,electronics and jazz in usually optimistic beautiful Neo-hippie brew.
"Flamingo Sky" is not an exemption, and even the cover art says it all. Small band consists of Mazur on percussion,occasional piano and singing, dreamy vocalist/percussionist Josefine Cronholm and guitarist/electronics wizard Krister Jonsson (plus electric bassist Klavs Hovman on two tracks). Based on Caribbean rhythms (steel pan or something what sounds as steel pan is dominating on many songs),album's music covers much wider territory than Latin jazz. Tasteful use of electronics makes music sounding more modern than let say Flora Purim works from seventies, groovy bass and true jazzy vocalize pushes it more towards acid jazz. Being very melodic with feel-able touch of psychedelia, songs quite surprisingly often recall some early 70s Allen Gong's compositions.
It happened to me seeing her playing live few years prior to the release of this album with bigger band on seaside open air Klaipeda jazz fest, similar music there sounded more arranged and orchestrated building shamanic show of sort. Studio album is less complex, a bit more lazy and easily radiates that almost euphoric atmosphere of late summer day somewhere in Latin America. Nice music somewhere between spiritual jazz and acid jazz, especially if you like lyrics about elephants using the phone and the butterflies. - jazzmusicarchives.com
Tracks
01. Flamingo sky (Mazur)
02. Rustle of the lambs (Jonsson/Mazur)
03. The butterflies (Mazur)
04. Ø (Mazur/Friis/Nielsen)
05. Like a lover (Cronholm)
06. Skoven som kirke (Mazur)
07. Aftenlys (Mazur)
08. Strange spell (Cronholm/Jonsson/Mazur)
09. Eletelephony (Cronholm/Jonsson/Mazur)
10. Ufozil (Mazur)
11. New deep (Mazur)
12. Gone (Cronholm/Mazur)
13. Drum dream (Mazur)
14. Frisk baglaens (Mazur)
15. Gong snake (Jonsson/Mazur)
16. Crystalize (Mazur)
MARILYN MAZUR drums, piano, vocals, percussion
KLAUS HOVMAN electric bass (3, 10)
KRISTEN JONSSON guitar, electronics
JOSEFINE CRONHOLM vocals, percussion
Recorded February 24 & 25th 2014 at MillFactory Studio
Stunt Records – STUCD 14122 (Denmark)