Laurent Cokelaere - 1983 - Coke Tales

Laurent Cokelaere 

1983 

Coke Tales

01. 421 Marlborough Street

02. Don't Eat Me Pac-Man!

    a) Maze

    b) N.M. 11/12

03. Bick's Kick

04. Havona

05. Chromatic 12

06. Funky Pedulla, Groovy Orsini

07. Instreaneuse Blues

08. Spotta Pulsation 60

Alto Saxophone – Richard Foy

Baritone Saxophone – Jean-Claude Doletina

Bass – Laurent Cokelaere

Bass – Frédéric Payonne

Drums – François Laizeau

Drums – Amaury Blanchard

Guitar – Khalil Chahine

Guitar – Philippe Drouillard

Guitar – Jean-Dominique Sallaberry

Keyboards – Bertrand Richard

Keyboards – Georges Gasquy

Percussion, Voice – Sydney Thiam

Tenor Saxophone – Bertrand Auger

Tenor Saxophone – Francis Bourrec

Alto Saxophone – Richard Foy

Baritone Saxophone – Claude Thirifays

Soprano Saxophone – André Villeger

Trombone – Jean-Louis Damant

Trombone – Denis Leloup

Trumpet – Dominique Derasse

Trumpet –Jean Imbert

Violin – Pierre Blanchard

Electronic Drums [Simmons] – Philippe Chauveau

Bugle [Solo] – J.-L. Lognon

Double Bass – José Parras

Bassist Laurent Cokelaere composed all the music for this record, except for the Weather Report (Jaco Pastorius) track called Havona and a fantastic track that is too. It's a wonder he didn't write more before. I guess he played in the Yoch'ko Seffer group which explains the huge amount of progressive ideas. I looked through the bands in his discography, though that might not be complete, and there's not much else of interest other than the follow up live Minigruel en Concert album from 1985 (which will be here shortly).

It's a beautiful album cover, you can see they collaged old engravings from 19th c. French artist Gustave Dore on an outer space background to wonderful effect. Very original too. The title of the album must have been such a hilarious punnish joke to all those present, given the times, today, it just seems silly.

I think you can consider the music a cross between the funky guitar fusion of Alain Renaud recently compiled here and the Jeanneau big band jazzier style of fusion posted multiple times here in the past. What's beautiful is the way he keeps the funk in the mix, front and centre, whilst using such a great band full of brassy arrangements in the background-- Cokelaere did the orchestrations and arrangements too. It's a remarkable sound and hugely, highly enjoyable for myself, with the warmth from commercial-pop funk permeating through and through the more intellectual, jazzier elements. All instrumentals. To my surprise the band, which is called Polygruel, has 21 members.

A juicy and heterogenous gem in my humble opinion. Listen and please let me know what you think about it.