Koinonia - More That a Feeling

I bought this album for my dad because it was supposed to be a "jazz" album. I thought he'd like it ... maybe he did, maybe he didn't. He did, though, keep it, and recently when my mum was packing up her place to move, she asked me to go through the records and I should take anything I wanted.

Years earlier, when dad was still alive, he'd let me pillage his collection and I "borrowed" quite a few classics from early Ray Charles to Harry Belafonte, and those albums would be lost on my watch. So I went through again and picked out a bunch of stuff, mostly stuff I'd given him over the years and a few old gospel albums that looked interesting.

It's kind of weird listening to More Than a Feeling now after all this time and recognizing bits and pieces of songs I'd not heard in decades. I don't think I played this more than a few times back in the early '80s, but not heard it since.

What drew me to the band were the players. I'd seen guitarists Dean Parks and Hadley Hockensmith listed in the credits on a few albums, and both were monsters. Likewise with Alex Acuna and Bill Maxwell, two drummers who seemed to be on a lot of albums I had. Abraham Laboriel was a beast on bass, and Harlan Rogers was a name I'd seen on a Keith Green album.

The album I suppose is jazz fusion, but man, I am terrible with genre labels. There are times it's jazzy, other times it's got more of a swing, and then there are moments that are sophisticated pop. Then there are times it sounds like game show music ... yeah, that sounds harsh, it's not a dig.

Just that over time this kind of jazz fusion blended with new age, and hearing this now I have four decades of other music that gets overlaid, and sometimes it makes for a little cognitive dissonance when trying to keep things in the correct order of operations.

All but two of the compositions are instrumental. The two songs that have vocal accompaniment aren't traditional songs in the way of chorus, verse, bridge. The vocals on "Divina" and "Give Your Love" are sung by Russ Taff, along with Harlan Rogers and Abraham Laboriel, and are for effect more than lyrical content. I really liked it.

The album was produced and engineered by the legendary Bill Schnee, and Michael Omartian was a special guest and played some synthesizer. He also, along with Tom Keene, did the synth programming. I thought that was pretty cool.

I really enjoyed listening to this, and it got me thinking about my dad, and I really hope he did like this one.

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