Ferrante & Teicher - In A Soulful Mood (1974) & Killing Me Softly (1973) (2013 reissue)

A typically fine-sounding twofer remaster from Dutton Vocalion, focusing on piano tricksters Ferrante & Teicher.  Like the recent Chaquito post, these two albums come from a period in the 60s-70s when the easy listening industry turned to the more contemporary hits of the day to update its mass appeal.  So if Chaquito featured tunes like Aquarius and Light My Fire gone cod-Latin, the two records here include the likes of Ain't No Mountain High Enough and My Cherie Amour gone Philly Soul-lite with liberal amounts of piano.

Yep, these two albums are both stone-cold crate-digger gold, with abundant sampling potential in their funky backing - and it's not all covers, as evidenced by the smoking original blues Hong Kong Soul Brother.  Other highlights of In A Soulful Mood (placed first on CD) include a lovely slow-grooving version of Duke Pearson's Cristo Redentor, made famous by Donald Byrd, and two Stylistics songs, Stone In Love and Betcha By Golly.  Released the previous year, Killing Me Softly was the album with that striking cover painting above - it's not a legit Margaret Keane, just an imitation.  Here we get a bit more of a films & shows focus, with the likes of Also Sprach Zarathustra (modelled after Deodato's version) and Last Tango In Paris, as well as two more F&T originals, See Saw and Night Sounds.

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