Sean Trane
Apparently, Airto’s tenure with CTI didn’t last all that long, since 74’s Virgin Land album was released on the CTI-subsidiary Kudu-Salvation label, but this included a fairly different set of supporting guest musicians, with only wife Flora and bassist Stanley Clarke present from the CTI days. But other well-known guest include George Duke, David Amaro, and Billy Cobham behind the production desk in Hendrix’ old Electric Lady studios.
Opening on the ultra-funk of the Clarke-penned 100 MPH Stanley’s Tune, Virgin Land is off to a flying start, only to be confirmed with the DeLorme–written Musikana that seems to be written for (unannounced) didgeridoo. Closing the A-side is the Santana-inspired title track (just after a rather free-dissonant intro), where Airto’s bass vocals provide some cool sonic effects, and we’re crossing the desert on a Caravanserai trip.
On the flipside, there are four (relatively) shorter tracks, the first of which is a Klezmer-infected fast funk (almost disco) groove Peasant Dance from Milcho Leviev (on keyboards) with some clarinet to boot. The gentler slightly mid-eastern infected Lydian Riff follows, but the track s too long for its own good, despite some far-tripping light Egyptian ambiances. Things pick up with the upbeat Hot Sand, a funky Arp-synth-dominated (courtesy of Duke) piece, where Airto’s percussions and vocals are all over the place. The closing and rockier Don’t Have To Do sounds a bit like a Peter Frampton tune, with a vocoder-guitar coming alive throughout the track, sometimes underlined by a mellotron. Weird stuff.
A rather strange album, definitely more even than the schizophrenic Free album, Virgin Land can’t really be called JR/F, but it doesn’t fit the funk-soul-jazz mould either, but it’s probably Airto’s finer solo album discography moment.