|
“The mysterious Shades of Joy recorded the wholly instrumental album The Music of El Topo in San Francisco, the LP finding release on the Douglas label in 1970. Co-produced by Alan Douglas (famous for his controversial posthumous work on some Jimi Hendrix material), it’s an odd but listenable mix of early jazz-rock fusion, psychedelia, funk, and the kind of meditatively somber and pretty music you might expect to hear on the soundtrack to a period drama. And in fact most of the compositions are credited to film director Alejandro Jodorowsky, who was responsible for the early-’70s cult film El Topo. Fifteen musicians are credited with playing on the album, the most noted of them being occasional Grateful Dead/Jerry Garcia sideman Howard Wales (on electric keyboards), though there are also numerous percussionists, brassmen, and flutists; in fact, there are three combination flutist/tenor saxophonists alone. (Jodorowsky himself does not play any of the music, however.) Martin Fierro (who played flute, tenor sax, alto sax, and cowbells, as well as being credited as a “scratcher”) seems to have been the musician most involved with the project, also doing the orchestration and horn arrangements.” |
