Published on Jul 7, 1999
If Chip Davis was not the father of new age music, he certainly
was one of the genre’s forefathers.
In 1975, Davis took a group of his own compositions, which did
not fit any neat label that anyone would want to try to put on
them, and created his own group, Mannheim Steamroller, as well as
his own record label, American Gramaphone. With his six-piece group
and a vision in mind, the
Fresh Aire series was born. (Thanks to eBay user Jim
Schmalz, I was able to get six of the seven albums in the
series.)
The first album,
Fresh Aire I, was supposed to revolve around the theme of
spring, though the narrative poetry on the sleeve suggested that
the 12 songs on the disc actually represented not only the passing
of the seasons, but the progression of a man’s life.
Twenty-four years after this album’s release, it still holds up
as one of the premier new age albums ever recorded, though there
are two flaws with the album. We’ll get to those shortly.
The centerpiece of the group is keyboardist Jackson Berkey, who
seems to have several sets of hands as you hear everything from
electric piano to harpsichord to synthesizers all blending into an
harmonious cacaphony of texture. Davis plays a pivotal role in his
own group (besides composing all the music), playing drums,
recorder and, as he puts it in the liner notes, “other toys”.
Perhaps underappreciated in this group are the bass work of Eric
Hanson and the programming/strings of Don Sears. (Despite being
listed, I don’t recall hearing the work of Denny Schneider on
trumpet or Bill Buntain on trombone on the song “Pass The Keg
(Lia)”.)
The biggest complaint I have with
Fresh Aire I is simple: it’s far too short, clocking in at
33 minutes! Some of the songs on this album seem to fly by, and
before you know it, they’re over. Both “Sonata” and “Mist” fall
into this category; I could have easily kept listening to these
tunes for some time.
What makes Mannheim Steamroller a pleasure to listen to is the
way they can change gears and make it sound natural. On “Chocolate
Fudge,” Davis and crew turn the song from a lightly-seasoned
jazz/pop beat to a synthesized blues that creates a groove you’d
never expect to hear from this type of music. Berkey’s keyboard
magic is what really helps to push this tune over the top.
Likewise, “Saras Band” jumps from what sounds like a Celtic party
tune to an almost sci-fi rock piece – with a small pinch of big
band thrown in for good measure. If it sounds complicated, it
really isn’t.
So how can I say there are any mistakes on
Fresh Aire I? First, there is the overreliance on
interludes. I have no complaints about Berkey’s keyboard work, but
with the strength of songs like “Rondo” and “Saras Band,” I would
have liked to have heard more full band pieces, and not just gentle
piano melodies that tie the picture together.
Second, there is only one track on
Fresh Aire I that misses the mark – and that is the song
“Fresh Aire”. Written to be almost like a gentle folk lullaby, the
song never really seems to get off the ground creatively, and seems
to stretch on far too long.
But what makes
Fresh Aire I so endearing is that the songs do seem to
follow the rise and fall of one’s life, in both the peaks (“Saras
Band,” “Pass The Keg (Lia)”) and the valleys (“Interlude II”,
“Mist”). Bill Fries’s poem on the jacket is a piece that perfectly
matches the flow of the music. I defy anyone not to be touched by
some of the words that Fries wrote.
Even if you don’t like new age music, there is something about
Fresh Aire I that is magical, and is an album that has
become that rare thing in the music industry: timeless. Over the
coming months, we’ll see if the other volumes in the series are
just as timeless.