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about this album
“Sky Islands” is the second album by Jazz fusion group Caldera released in 1977 on Capitol Records. The album rose to No. 18 on the Cashbox Top 40 Jazz Albums chart. The album’s title track was covered by Dianne Reeves on her 1987 self titled album and Ramsey Lewis on his 1993 LP Sky Islands. Mention the word “fusion” and a list of familiar names often turns up: Miles Davis, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Herbie Hancock, Tony Williams’ Lifetime, Return to Forever and Weather Report. But what about Caldera? Aficionados of the genre will probably know about them but, to many listeners, they will be a new discovery and, thanks to a BGO reissue of their first two albums on Capitol, it’s now possible to take a deeper look at the group that emerged at the height of fusion in the seventies. The single CD twofer combines Caldera (Capitol, 1976) with Sky Islands (Capitol, 1977) and showcases the group’s singular take on fusion with a solid dose of Latin rhythms. As guitarist Jorge Strunz explains to Charles Waring in the liner notes: “I had an idea of a fusion band that had Latin American elements in it. I moved to LA from the east coast early in the ’70s and started looking for people that could make that possible since I became very interested in the fusion movement of those times. A few years later, I think it was around 1976, I was able to put a band together.” The band members were born in many different parts of the world: Strunz (Costa Rica), pianist Eduardo DelBarrio (Argentina), s
