''Fresh Aire II'' is the second album that new-age musical group

Mannheim Steamroller Mannheim Steamroller is an American neoclassical new-age music ensemble founded and directed by percussionist/composer Chip Davis in 1974. The group is known primarily for its '' Fresh Aire'' series of albums, which blend classical music with e ...

originally released in 1977. Each of the first four ''Fresh Aire'' albums is based on a

season A season is a division of the year based on changes in weather, ecology, and the number of daylight hours in a given region. On Earth, seasons are the result of the axial parallelism of Earth's axial tilt, tilted orbit around the Sun. In temperat ...

; ''Fresh Aire II''s theme is fall. ''Fresh Aire II'' is unique in the series in that it is largely based on a single melody, presented consistently in the "Fantasia" music cycle (tracks 1–9) which starts off with 'Chorale,' followed by the seven "doors," ending with the piece 'Fantasy' and in the closing track 'Going To Another Place.' The same melody also occasionally appears in other albums in the series in a form closest to the first few notes in "The First Door."

Track listing

Personnel

Source: *

Jackson Berkey Jackson Berkey (born May 24, 1942) is an American composer, pianist and singer, best known for his work with Mannheim Steamroller, which he co-founded with Chip Davis in 1974. Early life and education Berkey was born in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania ...

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piano A piano is a keyboard instrument that produces sound when its keys are depressed, activating an Action (music), action mechanism where hammers strike String (music), strings. Modern pianos have a row of 88 black and white keys, tuned to a c ...

harpsichord A harpsichord is a musical instrument played by means of a musical keyboard, keyboard. Depressing a key raises its back end within the instrument, which in turn raises a mechanism with a small plectrum made from quill or plastic that plucks one ...

synthesizer A synthesizer (also synthesiser or synth) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis a ...

Fender Rhodes The Rhodes piano (also known as the Fender Rhodes piano) is an electric piano invented by Harold Rhodes, which became popular in the 1970s. Like a conventional piano, the Rhodes generates sound with keys and hammers, but instead of strings, t ...

, concert bells,

vocal The human voice consists of sound made by a human being using the vocal tract, including talking, singing, laughing, crying, screaming, shouting, humming or yelling. The human voice frequency is specifically a part of human sound producti ...

chant A chant (from French ', from Latin ', "to sing") is the iterative speaking or singing of words or sounds, often primarily on one or two main pitches called reciting tones. Chants may range from a simple melody involving a limited set of no ...

*Eric Hansen –

bass Bass or Basses may refer to: Fish * Bass (fish), various saltwater and freshwater species Wood * Bass or basswood, the wood of the tilia americana tree Music * Bass (sound), describing low-frequency sound or one of several instruments in th ...

lute A lute ( or ) is any plucked string instrument with a neck (music), neck and a deep round back enclosing a hollow cavity, usually with a sound hole or opening in the body. It may be either fretted or unfretted. More specifically, the term "lu ...

classical guitar The classical guitar, also known as Spanish guitar, is a member of the guitar family used in classical music and other styles. An acoustic wooden string (music), string instrument with strings made of catgut, gut or nylon, it is a precursor of the ...

Chip Davis Louis F. "Chip" Davis Jr. (born September 5, 1947) is the founder and leader of the music group Mannheim Steamroller. Davis composed the music for several C. W. McCall albums, including the hit 1975 song "Convoy". He has also written and made o ...

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drums The drum is a member of the percussion instrument, percussion group of musical instruments. In the Hornbostel–Sachs classification system, it is a membranophones, membranophone. Drums consist of at least one Acoustic membrane, membrane, c ...

, recorders,

dulcimer The term dulcimer refers to two families of musical string instruments. Hammered dulcimers The word ''dulcimer'' originally referred to a trapezoidal zither similar to a psaltery whose many strings are struck by handheld "hammers". Variants of ...

percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a percussion mallet, beater including attached or enclosed beaters or Rattle (percussion beater), rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or ...

, vocal chant *Walt Meskell – rhythm guitar *Dave Kappy –

French horn The French horn (since the 1930s known simply as the horn in professional music circles) is a brass instrument made of tubing wrapped into a coil with a flared bell. The double horn in F/B (technically a variety of German horn) is the horn most o ...

*Gene Badgett –

trumpet The trumpet is a brass instrument commonly used in classical and jazz musical ensemble, ensembles. The trumpet group ranges from the piccolo trumpet—with the highest Register (music), register in the brass family—to the bass trumpet, pitche ...

*Bob Jenkins –

oboe The oboe ( ) is a type of double-reed woodwind instrument. Oboes are usually made of wood, but may also be made of synthetic materials, such as plastic, resin, or hybrid composites. The most common type of oboe, the soprano oboe pitched in C, ...

*Melody Malec –

harp The harp is a stringed musical instrument that has individual strings running at an angle to its soundboard; the strings are plucked with the fingers. Harps can be made and played in various ways, standing or sitting, and in orchestras or ...

*Milt Bailey – vocal chant *Hugh Brown, Dorothy Brown, Ginni Eldred, Merton Shatzkin, Joe Landes, Mortimer Alpert –

violins The violin, sometimes referred to as a fiddle, is a wooden chordophone, and is the smallest, and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in regular use in the violin family. Smaller violin-type instruments exist, including the violino pic ...

*Alex Sokol, Lucinda Gladics, James Hammond –

viola The viola ( , () ) is a string instrument of the violin family, and is usually bowed when played. Violas are slightly larger than violins, and have a lower and deeper sound. Since the 18th century, it has been the middle or alto voice of the ...

*Miriam Duffelmeyer, Beth McCollum, Jean Hassel –

cello The violoncello ( , ), commonly abbreviated as cello ( ), is a middle pitched bowed (sometimes pizzicato, plucked and occasionally col legno, hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually intonation (music), tuned i ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fresh Aire 2 1977 albums 2 American Gramaphone albums