Customer Reviews

Just As I Thought

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The kind of person who will love this album loves Stanley Clark's School Days, Romantic Warrior by RTF, The Billy Cobham/George Duke Band live. David Sancious is a brilliant musician, composer, and arranger. I appreciate this record on so many levels - pure emotional response, brilliant compositions & arrangements of keyboard layers, exciting yet in the pocket drumming, amazing keyboard & guitar solos. It's amazing the rich textures and colors that Sancious gets out of the late 70s vintage synthesizers.

If you will permit a digression.... technology seems to have become an unfortunate substitute for human ingenuity. In movies, as new technology has made it increasingly easy to create brilliant special effects, less attention and effort has been put into making the story really great. Witness the new vs. old Star Wars films, or compare "Independence Day" to "Aliens". In the context of music, when synthesizers were in their infancy, and not capable of making every sound imaginable, artists had to use their creative ingenuity to get the most out of the available palette of colors and textures. Now, though, we seen a proliferation of mediocre music manufactured with technologically superior synths (that are also inexpensive and common), drum machines, sequencers, and samplers. Back in The Day, people like David Sancious made better music with less technology than the average recording "artist" today.

Continuing the lofty tradition set forth by the previous album (True Stories), "Just As I Thought" continues to control you with the incredibly expert piano and synth work from David Sancious (not to mention extreme guitar work), and he writes this amazing stuff! Up and down go the emotions. Up goes the appreciation for the musicians and singers on this album. Nobody is Alex Litgerwood (Vocals from Brian Auger, Santana, etc.) and nobody is Jeff Berlin (bass on many cuts), monster Ernest Carter on drums (a Billy Cobham affiliate) along with the soaring vocal work by names I don't know ... Too much and just the ticket for your "real not rubber musician" starved soul. The funk, jazz and the feel (wild to gospel, almost) will set you straight once again. An enema for your yen to hear taste and true virtuosity. The recordings are dated but nicely restored. Just buy it - IF you are a listener, you'll not regret the choice!

David Sancious is a seriously good musician. He is a virtuoso on two instruments: guitar and keyboards and an excellent composer to boot. This album, Just As I Thought, showcases his prodigous talents to their fullest extent. The music runs the gamut of electrifying jazz fusion, balladeering and balls out prog rock. I had heard of his music a before, mainly due to his collaborations with Sting and Bruce Springsteen, but I didn't know he was such a good songwriter too.

There are highlights galore on this album, tracks like "The Valley of the Shadow", "Suite for the End of an Age" and "Again" in particular. Musically, he is all over the map (which is a compliment), and has a excellent command of jazz, baroque classical, rock and electronic styles and fuses them together on many tracks. The stew concocted here is a little hard to describe, but if I was to compare it to anything else, I would say it's equal parts Chick Corea/RTF, Zappa, Bruford/UK/Holdsworth and Yes (without the soaring harmonies). The music is dense, keyboard heavy (lots of analogue synthesizers), with has more twists and turns (harmonic and rhythmic) than a F1 race track.

The supporting cast on bass and drums do a great job as well. They do well to keep up with the complexity of these compositions. If you like instrumental prog or fusion, you really have to check this album out.

I've waited a LONG time for this one to be reissued. This is a mostly-instrumental recording by keyboardist/guitarist/composer (and who knows what else) David Sancious. His compositions are gorgeous, mixing elements from rock, classical, jazz, funk, and soul. Kind of a blend of Aaron Copeland and Jimi Hendrix. More of the same and equally great music can be found on 'True Stories', that I've waited for just as long. His guitar playing has Holdsworth-like qualities that shine in serpentine solos and beautiful legato melody lines, and that's just his second instrument. Try it, you'll like it!

A thoroughly brilliant recording from beginning to end.

But, I'd like to single out one song that has stuck with me over the years because it is so unbelievably beautiful: "Again."

Sounding both nostalgic and mournful, the only song that I can think of that comes close to capturing this feeling is Bob Telson's "Calling You."

A great deal of credit for "Again" goes to Sancious as songwriter, but vocalist Alex Litgerwood takes a beautiful song and absolutely makes it his own. His performance is one of the most memorable I can remember -- avoiding mere pop vocalist artifice, and rendering a heartfelt personal statement.

I'm not sure how Sancious and his recording crew captured the magic in their recordings, but there is a transparent and painfully honest quality that shines through with this song in particular.

Do yourself a favor and behold this great album's beauty with this clean digital transfer.

I just received a copy of this CD from a good friend of mine and am in awe of its beauty, heart & complexity. I remember getting David's 1st solo, TRANSFORMATION, and just being knocked out by it. Then came TRUE STORIES, and another knock-out by way of an expanded version of his writing/performing abilities, enhanced by the monster, blue-eyed soul vocals of Alex Ligertwood. JUST AS I THOUGHT, if you don't have it already, belongs in your collection if you are a true fan of funk-oriented jazz fusion along the lines of Return to Forever, Weather Report (the 2 greatest jazz fusion bands of all time), Zappa, Stanley Clarke, the Mahavishnu Orchestra, & Narada Michael Walden. And as others have stated, the song "Again" is only one of the album's centerpieces...a recording of heartbreaking beauty & depth.

Now, the question arises: WHEN, DAVID, ARE YOU GOING TO RE-RELEASE "TRUE STORIES" ON CD????????? Please don't torture us like this! :o)

Read the caption. It says it all.