Barry Miles - Scatbird

“Scatbird" was released in 1972. Barry Miles known in some circles as “The Father of Fusion” created on this release an early true fusion statement very much representative of the music movement he developed under the name of "Syncretic Music" between 1964 and 1965, which became a chilling influence for many artists of the 70’s such as Return To Forever, Mahavishnu Orchestra and Al DiMeola who made Miles an interactive part of his band for many years. This release was one of the pioneers of the Fusion movement that would follow. A couple of tracks "Scatbird" and "Latina" feature Miles vocalizing scatting wordlessly along with his keyboards, kind of allusive to the album title, but the real gems on this album are the fusion tracks "Suburban Shuffle", "Life-Cycle", "Arrows and Eagles" (sampled here) and "Skeleton Dance", which feature Miles at his best and a very young explosive drummer Terry Silverlight (Miles’ younger brother), who apparently was only 14 at the time of this recording. Musicians are: Barry Miles on keyboards, John Abercrombie on guitar, Frank Tusa on bass and Terry Silverlight on drums.

Track Listing:

1. Scatbird
2. Suburban Shuffle
3. Lyfe-Cycle
4. Arrows and Eagles (sampled here)
5. Skeleton Dance
6. Latina
7. First Love