Rudy Smith Quartet [ Still Around ] CD [EM1073CD]

EM Steel Pan series #2.

The album Still Around is the first record Rudy Smith made under his own name, and it is considered a classic and one of his best. In the long history of Pan music, both in Trinidad and internationally, this is one of the very few albums to feature Pan as the leading voice in a pure jazz setting.

His group The Modern Sound Quintet played disco/reggae/jazz fusion, changing their name to The Modern Sound Corporation in the late 1970s. After extensive touring throughout Europe, they broke up in 1980. Rudy Smith moved to Denmark in 1983, where he decided to return to the music he loved, jazz & be-bop, forming the Rudy Smith Quartet.

The group included Ole Mathiessen (piano), Niels Prセstholm (bass) and a South African drummer, Gilbert Matthews.

There is an international inspiration for the music on the 1984 album Still Around, featuring an oriental element, mixed with a dash of Europe, as well as American jazz.

Rudy Smith is referred to as the jazz king of steel pans, and in Denmark as the father of steel pan.

Recorded at Montezuma Recording AB, Stockholm, March 28-29, 1984.
Mixed at Montezuma Studio by R.S.Q.
S & P Records and Mickael Lundin Recording Technician.

+Cardboard/gatefold paper CD case
+English/Japanese liner notes

TRACKS:
1. Blues L'Armoise
2. Ursia
3. Elise
4. Blues for Bradick
5. Be Bach
6. Still Around
7. El Vito