Well I went to the store today that had the Oxley title, and amazingly enough, they had Ray Russell's "Dragon Hill" and "Rites and Rituals," which I snapped up faster than you can say CBS Realm Jazz Series :rsmile: So here are my first impressions:
"Dragon Hill" which is quartet date of piano, bass drums, and two tracks which are augmented with trumpet and saxophone is a pretty nice and straightforward date. You can sense that Russell though is really trying to push a more 'rough around the corners' guitar sound, which immediately hit me as "pre Last Exit era Sonny Sharrock" This one has the CBS Realm Jazz logo on the cover. I recognized none of the sidemen, but if anyone wants me to list them, I can.
But its "Rites and Rituals" that blew me away! Man, this album is heavy! Its a sextet album, with trumpet, sax, trombone, guitar, bass (electric on the first track and accoustic on all the others) and drums. Here, Russell clearly sounds like later-day Sonny Sharrock, but mixed in with Tauhid-era Sharrock weirdness too. The first track is a mother, there's so much going on here. This is positively a more-out date than Dragon Hill. I have to go, but if anyone wants any more details on these dates, like dates and sidemen, just let me know.