Fantasias for Guitar & Banjo

Orpheus Listening Challenge 2026: #28. An album between the years 1958 and 1965 that is categorized under the Greenwich Village Scene (17th Album)

Classical music for the lonesome travellers among us which peruse the different aspects of life in a way which the common folk don't understand. Maybe are sometimes scared of, even.

Blend is the main course of the bunch, with a raga-infused jazz atmosphere that's built by Sandy Bull and the fear inducing drums of BIlly Higgins, drummer who claimed his fame with Ornette Coleman and Archie Shepp. The kid (he was 22 here) put all his chips into this great-ass composition.

And that's where the whole sparkle ends. The rest of the songs are noodles of the highest order. Not bad, but severely lacking in memorability. Carmina Burana Fantasy is a ditty, and Gospel Tune is a blues comp. That's it.