I've discovered the album I've needed to hear for a long time! The album is by a fellow named Bill Plummer and is enitled Bill Plummer & The Cosmic Brotherhood, released on ADC Impulse Records. Check out the review posted to Waxidermy back in early 2006. The review sums up the scene well, so I won't go into it today. However, I've gotta say that if you like your psychedelic sitar mixed in with you mid-'60s exotica jazz, then you've found an amazing trip with this album. Consider this a melange of Dave Brubeck , Martin Denny and Ravi Shankar. Waxidermy provides a sound clip of Paris Fortuna, if you're interested. (Sadly, there is no sitar on this particular track.)
Max Waller provides the following information about the musician and this album:
Born in Boulder, Colorado in 1943, Bill Plummer moved to Los Angeles twenty years later to pursue a jazz career. Already trained on piano, string bass, trumpet, marimba and vibraharp, he added the sitar to his repertoire under the tutelage of Ravi Shankar. He played and toured with Herb and Lorraine Geller, Nancy Wilson, the Paul Horn Group, Buddy DeFranco Quartet, and Pete Jolly Trio amongst others. In 1966 he toured with Tony Bennett and Buddy Miles and formed an experimental group The Jazz Corps, which included Lynn Blessing and Maurice Miller.
His love of jazz and interest in Indian music comes together on this 1967 album where jazz workouts sit alongside Eastern ragas and blend with some contemporary pop/rock influences - exotic renditions (ala Lord Sitar or Folkswingers) of Bacharch's ‘The Look Of Love’ and Byrds' ‘Lady Friend’ are enchanting rather than cheesy. The sitar extravaganza should appeal most to psych fans of an Eastern persuasion: the trippy ‘Journey To The East’ (with deadpan spoken vocals) has since appeared on Journey To The East (LP); the ten minute 'Arc 294' is a heady cacophony, where exotic instruments do battle on a field of freeform jazz.
Should you have any additional bio information about Bill Plummer, or know of a Bill Plummer discography, please let me know. This guy is great!
3 comments:
Check out the web site at bassplum.com
Thanks, Anonymous. You've made this bass player very happy. Frankly, this is one hell of a gift at New Year's!
Bill Plummer lives in Jackson Hole, Wyoming and plays as a duo with a local classical guitarist names John Michael Haines. I manage Alpine Wines & Bistro, in Driggs, Idaho. Bill and John will be playing in our space this week on Thanksgiving Eve. He still rocks it, and is a total class act.
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