Jazz Articles about Forgas Band Phenomena

Forgas Band Phenomena: Acte V

by AAJ Italy Staff
September 25, 2012

Quinta prova discografica per l'ensemble Forgas Band Phenomena, settetto guidato da Patrick Forgas, batterista-compositore-arrangiatore francese, già noto nei circuito del progressive e della fusion europea per i suoi trascorsi da “scolaro" della scuola di Canterbury. Forse pochi ricorderanno il suo esordio, nel 1977, Cocktail, con membri di Magma e Zao e la partecipazione del bravo bassista Gérard Prevost. Un tentativo, un po' ingenuo e acerbo, di emulare le gesta di Robert Wyatt e soci. Molto più convincente, invece, il progetto ...

Forgas Band Phenomena: Acte V

by Glenn Astarita
September 7, 2012

Drawing comparisons to a pro football team, this band would most assuredly make the playoffs every year. Highly acclaimed, the French unit led by drummer Patrick Forgas looms as a proven commodity within the upper echelon of progressive rock. The album presents a potpourri of fusion and jazz-rock that translucently incorporates the blitzkrieg improvisational segments of familiar persuasions, yet the artists' bring much more to the table. One of the trademark components of the septet's sound is attributed ...

Forgas Band Phenomena: L'Axe du Fou - Axis of Madness

by AAJ Italy Staff
May 20, 2009

Credo fermamente che l'universo sonoro che ha sempre ruotato attorno alla celebrata “Canterbury Scene," da Caravan, Soft Machine e National Health in qua, sia - da quando ho l'età della ragione - una delle manifestazioni sonore più belle ed intriganti dell'intera storia della musica. Chi, alla fine dei Sessanta/inizi Settanta, ne è stato stregato, non è più riuscito a liberarsene restandone invischiato come mosca nel miele. Folgorato sulla via di Damasco dal secondo lavoro discografico dei Soft Machine, l'oggi quasi ...

Forgas Band Phenomena: L'Axe du Fou (Axis of Madness)

by John Kelman
February 9, 2009

There has been a relatively short gap between Forgas Band Phenomena's L'Axe du Fou and Soleil 12 (Cuneiform, 2005)--four years, as opposed to the six between Soleil and the out-of-print Extra Lucide (Cosmos, 1999)--but plenty has happened. Drummer Patrick Forgas' longstanding group has been almost completely revamped--only bassist Kengo Mochizuki and keyboardist Igor Brover remain--and with the departing altoist Denis Guivarc'h, his octet has trimmed down to a septet.

With Soleil's captivating material dating back a ...

Forgas Band Phenomena: Extra-Lucide

by John Kelman
November 11, 2005

While Soleil 12 (Cuneiform, 2005) was the first album from French drummer/composer Patrick Forgas' Forgas Band Phenomena to receive international distribution, the group had in fact already released two records in the late 1990s on France's Cosmos Music label. Sadly, Roue Libre is out of print; but the group's sophomore effort, Extra-Lucide, is still available and bears revisiting, if for no other reason than providing a different perspective on the nearly twenty-minute “Pieuvre à la Pluie" that can also be ...

Forgas Band Phenomena: Soleil 12

by John Kelman
October 15, 2005

Although it emerged in the late 1960s concurrent with American counterparts who were also investigating a fusion of jazz with a rock sensibility, the British Canterbury scene has always retained a distinct complexion. American artists like Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock, and Chick Corea tended to approach fusion from the jazz side of the equation. By contrast, many of the Canterbury scene's leading lights, including Soft Machine's Hugh Hopper and Mike Ratledge, came from a background in pop and were influenced ...