"A Memory of Our Future" Looks Back At Global Prog Rock

didn't see this coming

Ever arrive at a party in progress where everyone knows everyone and you know no one? Leslie Mandoki's A Memory of Our Future an 80 minute double album arrived in a big box just before Munich High End 2024 along with multiple copies of a sumptuously produced promo booklet and an even bigger bound book touting the Mandoki Soulmates, drummer/producer Leslie Mandoki's all-star band that's been playing together in one form or another for thirty years.

Ever hear of it? I hadn't but of course I and you know many of the Soulmates who include rock, prog-rock and fusion stars like Ian Anderson, Al di Meola, Randy Brecker, members of Supertramp, the other Bill Evans and Mike Stern. It's an impressive and impressively large big band line up: drummer Mandoki, the above mentioned musical stars—17 in all plus an additional 5 adding accordion, sitar, keyboards, saxophone, violin and flute.

The booklet touts the all-analog production in caps: "ANALOG RECORDING, ANALOG MIXING AND ANALOG MASTERING, recorded and mixed in Mandoki's Munich area Red Rock Studios and mastered by "the renowned Greg Calbi at "Sterling Sound, New York", with "...the vinyl master cut at Emil Berliner Studios."

This didn't add up to me. Greg doesn't master in analog anymore. So why is he even listed, never mind highlighted above the cutting engineers, who are celebs in their own right? I asked for answers but meanwhile this arriving a week before Munich High End was not great timing. Too busy getting ready. Hoped to get it written up following Munich High End 2024 but it never happened.

Upon my return both Greg and Rainer replied and sorted all of this out for me. Greg prepared the digital editions and Rainer Maillard and Sidney Meyer cut lacquers using the analog master tapes but two things led to another and this review got put off and then abandoned.

I'm about to post a review of the Austin AudioWorks The Black Swan Phono Preamp (it too is late but why is another story for another time) and it brought to mind the Black Swan on this record's album cover. A black swan (according to A.I.) "...is a metaphor for the reality that just because something has not happened does not mean that it cannot occur in the future."

.Now I'm getting ready for Munich 2025 and determined to get this "black swan" review published before leaving for the show lest I run into Mr. Mandoki, who in the photos appears formidable! The record is still available and a video performance from a Budapest 2024 performance by the group appeared on YouTube two weeks ago so the record is not yet old news.

The promo booklet aptly describes the music: "British prog rock meets the virtuosic brilliance of New York jazz rock and fusion." There's also a Hip-Hop rap approach on the opening side as if Mr. Mandoki attempts to modernize the '70s era musical approach. The lyrics juxtaposes metaphors (as does the album title A Memory of Our Future) : "walking on hot coals, feeling nothing but cold", " like a fisherman in the woods". He's also big on seasonal metaphors.

Mr. Mandoki's big picture view of a world on fire was more commonly expressed in the 70's than it is today, though of course the world is more on fire today than back then. When you hear "The Wanderer" you're sure to hear Peter Gabriel's melodic world worry. Mandoki's concerns are more modern: social media disconnect ("social media becomes the devil's encyclopedia"), the rise of fascism and totalitarianism.

The overarching theme is that all of the dreams of "The Woodstock Generation" today lie in tatters and he's willing to try a wake up call to a younger generation.

Mr. Mandoki turns autobiographical on side 4. Interesting placement because only then does all of what came before make sense and only then does Mr. Mandoki's grandiosity become appropriate. As he says in the book, "Musically I stepped out of the intellectual bent of my own Prog-Rock comfort zone on this new record to write a few songs reflecting the stormy seas of my heart as an artist, as well as singing about my own story....".

That story is about a young man growing up in Soviet controlled Hungary, becoming a musical and political mouthpiece and being told he'd never get a passport, so in the mid 1970s he chose to escape on foot with friends, ending up as an asylum seeker in Bavaria. The book recounts his being interviewed by the authorities about his plans living in the west (all of this sounds very contemporary). He told them he'd escaped so he could make music with his heroes that included Jack Bruce, Ian Anderson and Al Di Meola—this at the time their careers were peaking.

He had big dreams that the authorities found humorous bordering on pathetic, but Mandocki's father on his deathbed told him "Live your dream and don't dream your life" (it's clear from where his juxtapositional lyrics sprung) and so in 1991 he'd assembled a jazz-rock line up called "Mandoki Soulmates", founding members included Jack Bruce, Al Di Meola, Anthony Jackson, The Brecker Brothers, of course Ian Anderson and many others, some of whom play on this record produced 30 years later.

Yes, the music is mostly "old school" prog-rock, the "world-view" lyrical concerns border on pompous, but given Mr. Mandocki's history, he's more than entitled to be the mouthpiece.

The all analog production at his own impressive studio is also "old school" in a great way. It sounds like the way "they used to make records" because that's how it was produced. The sound is as grandiose as the musical and lyrical intent, with maybe a bit more compression than necessary but it's definitely "turn up-able".

I don't see the double LP set pressed at Optimal album on the audiophile websites but on Amazon it's $32.04. I see it on Qobuz too.

Interesting coincidence: today on Morning Joe, Scarborough interviewed a woman who had just published a book about a group of Ukrainian Jewish immigrants working settled in Galveston, Texas of all places and established a community rich with art and literary culture. One of the playwrights who lived and wrote there invented the term "melting pot". The last song on this record is called "Melting Pot". I wonder if Mr. Mondoki knows from where the expression came. Also not sure of the origins of "better late than never".

An interview with Leslie Mandoki