Flute, Soprano Saxophone, Tenor Saxophone – Art Themen, Don Rendell (tracks: A1, A2, B1, B2)
Piano, Electric Piano [Fender], Piano [Hohner] – Michael Garrick
Trumpet, Flugelhorn, Violin – Henry Lowther
Voice – Norma Winstone
Recorded in Decca No. 2 Studio, London 13, 25, 26 October 1973.
Pianist / composer Michael Garrick has been a pivotal figure in the British Jazz for over five decades and his recorded legacy over the years is an enormous source of inspiration and an example of intelligence, finesse and dedication. By the mid-1970s the British Jazz revolution was all but complete and the scene's decade of glory was also nearing its end, with record sales declining. Therefore this album was to be the last recording Garrick made for the Argo label, a subsidiary of Decca. His ambition to push the music beyond the well established boundaries, with the music becoming more complex in the process, was a key factor in the company's decision to cease the fruitful cooperation, which lasted for a decade and produced some of Britain's best and most important Jazz masterpieces. Following the initial release of this album Garrick would almost completely stop releasing albums for over two decades, until he finally established his own independent Jazz Academy label and his output appeared there regularly since, to the delight of his many fans, myself included. The group playing on this recording consists mostly of Garrick's long time cohorts and the British Jazz scene's lions: Henry Lowther on trumpet and violin, Art Themen on flute and sax, Don Rendell on flute and sax, bassists Dave Green and Coleridge Goode and drummer Trevor Tomkins. The divine vocalist Norma Winstone was also an integral part of his band and her performances here are truly sensational. The album was recorded just a few weeks after the death of Joe Harriott, Garrick's dear friend and music-making partner and the album includes a tribute to his genius. This has always been one of my favorite albums and surely one of British Jazz everlasting masterpieces, which remains an essential listening to this very day. Absolute must!
A landmark album from pianist Michael Garrick – one of the sublime recordings he made with vocalist Norma Winstone in the late 60s and early 70s! Garrick's approach is really unique – a flowing, almost modal approach that spirals out in a joyously dancing groove – not nearly as chunky or standard as styles from American jazz, but working in the freer rhythms being explored on the European scene of the time. Winstone's vocals are a perfect accompaniment for this approach – as she sings in a moody style that's often wordless, and which fits nicely next to flowing piano and sax lines on the set. Players include Don Rendell, Coleridge Goode, Art Themen, and Garrick himself – and titles include "Troppo", "To Henry, A Son", "Lime Blossom", "Sons Of Art", and "Overtones Of A Forgotten Music".
01. Home Stretch Blues 02. Sweet And Low 03. Epiphany 04. Fire Opal And Blue Poppies (A Sequence Of Visions) a. Fire Opal: Retribution b. Fire Opal: Wishbone c. Blue Poppies: Limbo Child
Norma Winstone - Vocals Michael Garrick - Piano, Harpsichord Trevor Tomkins - Drums Dave Green - Bass Art Themen - Soprano Sax, Tenor Sax, Clarinet Henry Lowther - Trumpet, Flugelhorn, Violin Don Rendell - Tenor Sax 'Home Stretch Blues' And 'Epiphany' Only
Recorded at Audio International Recording Studios - April 7th 1972.
After the phenomenally successful (artistic-wise) Heart Is A Lotus album, Garrick gave it another shot at vocals-as-instrument experiment with the more military-minded HSB album (with the uniforms plastered on the cover and a supposedly funny liner note to explain it), but ultimately failed to match the predecessor’s near-perfection. With a reduced line-up - Carr and Phillip are out, but Lowther is in with his violin and trumpet, and only one bassist - compared to Lotus, Garrick also made some strange artistic choice that actually backfire to the fans he might have garnered with his previous effort. Indeed the silly WWII concept of the album imposed both the visual aspect, but also a more traditional jazz soundscape, at the detriment of the more modern side of the Lotus album.
Opening on the lengthy title track, the album is off to a smooth start, almost-standard-y, but it’s only sleeping waters only waiting to awake, because the track is deceptively simple as Garrick imposes some tricky chords changes to everyone from behind his piano. Norma’s vocals are rather more conventional than the previous album, but still interesting. An almost a capella Norma(l) vocal opens Sweet And (S)Low, but we’re again in too standard territory, which is, once more, not that much my Earl Grey cup. The 9-mins+ Epiphany (co-written by bassist Green) is again fairly traditional-sounding on the surface, but the more complex construction and piano chords are underlying, waiting to pounce on you just around the bend; while Norma is soaring high above and Lowther’s violin searing just below, the track ends much more energetic than it started.
Home Stretch Blues represents a high point in the Sextet's history. Within a few days our Trio also recorded 'Cold Mountain' (available on Vocalion CDSML 841 5) in the same studio behind Gloucester Place - and things felt good. We did both IPs in two 3-hour sessions. Kevin Daly, Harley Usill's producer for Argo, was encouraging and enthusiastic.
We had our dear friend Don Rendell on some of the tracks, a truly inspirational presence. I brought in my home-made harpsichord in my Reliant three wheeler, and we were all surprised that it actually worked (the harpsichord that is: we weren't so sure about the three-wheeler). You hear it pinging away on Fire Opal and Blue Poppies. John Smith's poem Co/ours for Jan te Witt was the spark that ignited the suite (reproduced on page 6). We'd recently had a trip in two cars to the northernmost tip of Scotland (Thurso), four in a big Vauxhall, Trevor Tomkins and I in a mini-van - the "scout car". It was he who invented the service ranks you see on the cover. It was, for us, very funny because of the relationship between our real characters and the ranks he chose.
Home Stretch Blues itself was born of those interminable hours on the motorway driving back at night from gigs, the rhythm reflecting the punctuation of the passing street lamps. With our bogus service ranks in place we built a fantasy of being marooned on King's Cross station after VE Day without a train in sight; hence the photograph (taken by Mick Rock) with clothing hired perfectly to fit courtesy of Argo Records. We had a tricky moment with Don, who refused to wear the Padre's dog-collar (in the end he wore his own shirt back to front), and Trevor who, as a US Army lieutenant, was spat at as he came along the platform. Sunday morning, too! We went straight from the photo-shoot to the BBC to record a "Jazz in Britain" programme. No one there so much as raised an eyebrow. We used to sing Tennyson's lullaby (in its original setting) "Sweet and Low" at junior school, together with "Golden Slumbers".
No one writes such lovely things any more ("Golden Slumbers" is temporarily misplaced.) Epiphany began - like Troppo - with a bass figure of Dave Green's. It turned into a late arrival for the Jazz Praises Ball, but nonetheless we had great fun with it, especially the whoops. I imagine it's our little pranks in the middle of "serious jazz" that sometimes puzzles people. Don't worry about it - our hearts are in the right place. I've loved all the groups I've been involved in, but this one particularly. As Norma Winstone says, it was like a family.
Recorded at Audio-International Studios, London, April 6 & 7, 1972.
Michael Garrick liked to flirt on the periphery of jazz, but , unlike some of his British contemporaries, he didn’t embrace the jazz-rock style that flourished around him. That’s why he continued to make trio recordings, like this one from 1972. Garrick’s jazz is not driven by the rhythm section, it swings lightly, and the three instruments maintain a delicate balance. This set, especially, has that floating quality which runs through most of his music, including his larger ensembles. It’s an intimate listening experience in which every note counts and just the right amount are used to express the idea, or the mood, that Garrick is looking for. Where he might feel the drummer needn’t play – the drummer doesn’t play!... It seems simple enough, but usually a jazz drummer likes to stay on his hi-hat or ride cymbal as much as possible. Of course, Garrick’s jazz isn’t all that different, but his compositions are meticulously arranged and their ebb and flow carefully controlled so that excessive force need never be applied. When the composition moves away from recognized jazz though, it’s difficult to say where it goes – folk-like, hymn-like, pseudo-classical.... Certainly much of Garrick’s playing is expressionistic, especially the title track – climbing the cold mountain face only to find the peak too (spiritually) intense and to tumble back down – but it isn’t avant-gard, in the way some parts of Moonscape are.
This is a cohesive set, truly fascinating, not a massive statement perhaps, but with a quality and consistency that flew in the face of what was happening at the time. Garrick at his lyrical best.
Pianist / composer Michael Garrick has been an icon of British Jazz for the last five decades. His exquisite touch on the keyboards, deep lyricism and unparalleled inventiveness as a composer characterize his entire legacy over time, which has very little rivalry or precedence. This album presents Garrick in the most intimate (and my favorite) Jazz format – the piano trio – with Dave Green on bass and Trevor Tomkins on drums. Garrick, as usual, wrote all the music, which is sublime from start to finish. His playing is also absolutely marvelous, full of lyricism and humorous spark, virtuosity and inspiration. The rhythm section provides solid and sympathetic support at all times, and overall this is one of my favorite piano trio recordings ever. Garrick manages to concentrate his enormous abilities as a player and composer on this album, which was recorded at a peak of his 1970s activity (the album “Home Stretch Blues” was recorded at the same session). There is nothing more that needs to be said here except that if you don’t own this album, you have a huge gap in your musical education. Essential!
Choir – Andrew Baird (2) (tracks: 2 to 24), Brian Newman (2) (tracks: 2 to 24), Bryony Comley (tracks: 2 to 24), David Gooder (tracks: 2 to 24), Edna Latham (tracks: 2 to 24), John Pattinson (tracks: 2 to 24), John Reading (2) (tracks: 2 to 24), Margaret Savage (tracks: 2 to 24), Reg Fletcher (tracks: 2 to 24), Simone Lewis (tracks: 2 to 24), Vernon Mound (tracks: 2 to 24)
Conductor – Peter Mound
Double Bass – Coleridge Goode, Dave Green (tracks: 1, 25)
Organ, Music By – Michael Garrick
Percussion – Trevor Tomkins
Tenor Saxophone, Clarinet, Flute – Don Rendell
Tenor Saxophone, Soprano Saxophone, Clarinet, Flute – Art Themen
Trumpet, Flugelhorn – Henry Lowther
Vocals – Betty Mulcahy, George Murcell, John Smith , Norma Winstone
Tracks 1 & 25: Original EP AFW105 (c. 1971)
Tracks 2-24: Original LP ZAGF1 (1971)
Leader Michael Garrick amidst his best albums of the early 70’s formed a special project which didn’t fit his usual sextet formations, and therefore created Garrick’s Fairground and wrote the concept of God’s absence or non-existence. Garrick had often used the vocals in jazz in unusual manners as shown by the outstanding Lotus album and the future Troppo disc to come, but also dealing with poetry in jazz. This present ambitious work indeed took his vocals idea a few step further (read: out there), this time using full choirs, on top of four lead voices, the best-known being Norma Winstone. Given the album’s line-up for the musicians, I had the warmest and highest expectations from this promisingly-titled album, most notably the presence of 4/5 of the RCQ (only Carr is missing) and wind-men Lowther and Themen. Alas deception was at hand, because the emphasis is more on the vocal experiences than on the jazz music, often not really that jazz, per se. Indeed, while there is definitely jazz base on MSA, it is kind of unique and escapes ready-made description and usual pigeonholes. Indeed the choral passages are often very complex and expressive: the lyrics are rather strong (courtesy of Poet John Smith >> can’t invent THAT, right? ;o)) and emotional, often veering incredibly cheesy and tacky, sometimes even evoking the Kobaian choirs of Magma, but also operatic or music-hall moments.
Michael Garrick – born in 1933 – is a peculiar character of English music who undoubtedly should be better known and appreciated by a larger segment of record-consuming population. His compositional attitude shows both admiration for traditions and the urge of trying new solutions in settings and orchestrations that mix lots of different ideas and influences. This probably derives from being self-taught (hey – the best talents own gifts, did you ever notice that?) and, in fact, he was once expelled by a piano lesson for inserting a quote from “In the mood” during a pupils’ exhibition. The main feature Garrick is remembered for, though, is the fusion of jazz and poetry, of which this CD – reissuing an LP from 1971 – is a great example. The basic concept underlying poet John Smith’s writings is that “god never seems to listen, never intervenes when most desperately needed and prayed to” (this was then; one wonders what Mr. Smith would have written today). The leader, who plays organ throughout, adapted the lyrics to the score in such a fashion that the outcome, a so called “jazz cantata”, sounds like a cross of twisted excerpts from musicals – “Jesus Christ Superstar” to “Tommy”, to name a couple that sprang to mind – enhanced by strange intervallic designs and harmonically complicated passages nearing the whole to the most intricate progressive rock. The principal vocalists are Norma Winstone, George Murcell and Betty Mulcahy besides Smith himself; the band comprises Henry Lowther (trumpet, flugelhorn), Don Rendell and Art Themen (tenor & soprano saxes, clarinet, flute), Coleridge Goode (double bass), Trevor Tompkins (percussion). Eccentric, abnormal music that requires attention in large doses and repays it in full. The reissue is completed by two tracks, “Epiphany” and “Blessed are the peacemakers”, that came out in the same year on an EP, then disappeared; the latter in particular is a splendid song, somehow recalling the work of Christian and Stella Vander in Magma and Offering, a reinforcement of my suggestion to get a copy of this forgotten gem. Bizarre, yet so interesting.
Killer, deep spiritual jazz with vocals of Norma Winstone - sounds like Strata East meets Pharoah Saunders etc in London! Wicked.
Clarinet – Art Themen (tracks: 5, 7, 8), Jim Philip (tracks: 7)
Double Bass – Coleridge Goode (tracks: 4, 7, 8), Dave Green (tracks: 1 to 3, 5, 6)
Drums – Trevor Tomkins
Flugelhorn – Ian Carr (tracks: 3, 8)
Flute – Art Themen (tracks: 1, 2, 6 to 8), Don Rendell (tracks: 6), Jim Philip (tracks: 7)
Harpsichord – Michael Garrick (tracks: 1, 7)
Piano – Michael Garrick (tracks: 2 to 7)
Saxophone [Soprano] – Art Themen (tracks: 4, 6), Don Rendell (tracks: 6)
Saxophone [Tenor] – Art Themen (tracks: 3, 5), Don Rendell (tracks: 3), Jim Philip (tracks: 8)
Trumpet – Ian Carr (tracks: 1, 2, 4 to 7)
Vocals – Norma Winstone (tracks: 1, 2, 4 to 7)
Recorded January 20 to 22, 1970.
Keeping contact with the now-defunct RCQ, Garrick soldiers on in his solo career and for the present Lotus album, he calls on his usual suspects (minus Harriott, thankfully), but adding new-comer Art Themen and John Phillips (both reedmen) and the superb Norma Winstone on vocals. Indeed, Garrick had been toying around with spoken poetry for most of the 60’s, and these poems appeared here and there on his albums, but by the end of the decade, he’d switched to using sung-vocals (with words) as an instrument, and HiaL is the first attempt, a quite successful one, if I may say. If the whole of the RCQ is on the present album, we can’t say that the musical realm is the same at all, but in many ways it’s at least as good as their later releases. Recorded over two days in early 70’s and graced with an evocative Eastern flower and bird illustration, it was released later that year on the small Vocalion label, and “recently” reissued in 05 on Cd.
The immediate result of a Harriott-less Garrick album is that it jumps and leaps at least one decade ahead, and HiaL is an amazing album, where you’ll find some spell-binding ambiances, not least because Garrick keeps experimenting with the harpsichord, but loads of flutes and delicious Norma(l) vocals (on 6 of the 8 tracks), but this is going much further than the Fitzgerald and Armstrong scat-vocals. Indeed, that classy lady can almost sound as a Norma(l) trumpet in her wailings, but she never gets screechy like Julie Tippetts or Ann Miller do. The album opens on some harpsichord, some enchanted vocals and tense bass lines, and Carr’s muted-trumpet and Themen’s orgiastic flute transport you directly in the troposphere on a raga-like cloud train, with Norma answering Carr’s trumpet calls and response, while Green’s bass lines are awesome, contrasts-ing with Garrick’s harpsichord, and Tomkins’ drums are over-volumed in a Sun Ra fashion. Fucking awesome stuff!!!
The following Song By The Sea is a full-group orchestration re-take of the Marigold album track, with the poem now sung. It’s too bad that such standard-y jazz tracks as the thankfully-shortest Torrent are present on the album, because they tend to ruin the cohesion and continuity of the musical direction, but it’s just one track. The 10-mins Temple Dancer has a hypnotizing rhythm that could charm a cobra, but Norma’s wailings will humble your dragon mother-in-law’s vicious tongue, while her ugly mutt will chase around the house that muted-trumpeted mosquito.
Across the slice of wax, a jumpy flute and Norma are directly pouncing on your attention, but the track develops is a slow bluesy-jazz (hence the title), but Carr’s trumpet will throw your eardrums in a panic, before realizing another aural orgasm is on the way as Norma’s squeals hers in your ear. The haunting Voices should floor you for the KO count, with everyone pounding notes into your saturated mind. You’ll get a bit of a rest with the Beautiful Thing track, which starts slowly out fine enough, but peaks in Gypsy-type jazz before a bowed-bass ends the tune unexpectedly. The closing Grave Song is another awesome sounds like a march-type thingie at first, but soon evolves into an astounding slow-death end.
The Question is: are we still in the jazz-realm (outside Torrent) or are we in the progressive rock idiom, because the variety of climates (jazz & non-jazz) is so extended that the Norma(l) boundaries are happily transgressed and have been sooooo totally erased, that the aural experiences are almost orgasmic. In the British-jazz realm, only Collier’s best album and Carr’s early Nucleus can match this, but this album is sometimes so amazing that I feel like removing the “English” part in that first part of the sentence.
anks to this outstanding Vocalion edition we can delight with this extraordinary album, that aged very well and stands as one of the best european jazz albuns of all time!!!! It's really amazing how beauty sparkles all over the record time, but specially "Temple Dancer" (incredible bass cadence!!), "Beautiful Thing" (astonishingly beautiful, really!!) and the eponymous title are superior music!!!! It is sad that musicians/composers with the quality of Michael Garrick never been mentioned in jazz anthologies and All Music Reviews, what kind of attitude is this??? if it is for not knowing, they are missing important things, but if it is the fact that this record never had a digital version, well, here it is available now and so don't loose time including it in the next Jazz Anthology, people!!!
Certainly we need to mention first the lovely voice of Norma Winstone that shines in six of the eight themes of this record, often reminding us the darkened beauty of Barbara Gaskin, in her Spirogyra/Hatfield And The North/National Health years, but Norma is supreme in this context...and the top-class full talented musicians that perform with true passion and heart...
Michael Garrick Sextet with Don Rendell & Ian Carr
1968
Prelude To Heart Is A Lotus
01. Heart Is A Lotus
02. Sweet And Sugary Candy
03. Webster's Mood
04. Song By The Sea
05. Temple Dancer
06. Little Girl
Michael Garrick - piano, harpsichord, celeste
Don Rendell - soprano e alto sax, flute
Ian Carr - trumpet
Jim Philip - flute
Coleridge Goode - double bass
Trevor Tomkins - percussion
Prelude to Heart is a Lotus is a 1968 BBC Jazz in Britain recording now released for the first time. Pianist and composer Michael Garrick was 35 years old and together with close associates - saxophonist Don Rendell and trumpeter Ian Carr - was defining innovative new directions in British jazz. Prelude to Heart is a Lotus is the precursor to the Argo Records Heart is a Lotus studio album which was released two years later, and this remarkable music shines a new light on an extraordinary period of creativity in Garrick’s long career.
Exactly fifty years ago the Great British Jazz Experiment was proceeding well, unhooking from the Mother-ship of American jazz. Our new British flagship was the combination of pianist Michael Garrick, trumpeter Ian Carr and saxophonist Don Rendell. The emphasis was acoustic instrumental craftsmanship within original compositions, a fabric woven of different timbres – soprano and alto sax, flute, piano and like variations. The Carr-Rendell-Garrick team series of EMI Lansdowne albums of the late sixties remain the most sought after in the British jazz canon, so it was a delight to find some of this gorgeous material, in affordable vinyl form, thanks to Gearbox Records.
Gearbox Records obtained access to music recorded for radio by the BBC, who recorded the Garrick ensemble numerous occasions ( I count seventeen recorded sessions in the BBC database) for radio broadcast during the late ’60s and early ’70s, for programmes with names like Jazz Club, The Jazz Scene, Jazz Line Up, Jazz Parade, Jazz Workshop, and Jazz In Britain, fronted by jazz stalwarts Humphrey Lyttleton or Miles Kington . Good time to own a radio.
The title track of the BBC Prelude recording, Heart is a Lotus, is the common thread with a commercial release under the same name a little over two years later, The Heart Is A Lotus, recorded 20-22 January, 1970. Here the similarity stops, as the later album has only two further songs in common with The BBC Prelude, and the later recording line up includes vocals. Lots of it.
The interplay between the composition and the musicians – Garrick, Carr and Rendell – is inspired. Carr has a full rich tone, leaning towards flugelhorn, Rendell gives the upper-register sax an exhausting work out, ranging between Sidney Bechet and Indian snake-charmer; acoustic bass and drums are propulsive and suspenseful. I like to think this time and music was Britain’s Kind Of Blue moment, or Red White and Blue moment, just typically ten years late.
By the early 70’s, the pied piper of jazz rock fusion drew Ian Carr off to form Nucleus, rock tempo ectric bass electric piano combo. Rendell recorded intermittently but found a new direction in teaching. Garrick, ever searching for new directions, started his own label (Jazz Academy), started his own jazz school, and toured tirelessly. However, the brief magical spider’s web of the Michael Garrick Sextet was no more.
Gearbox records are a class act presenting previously unheard recordings on quality vinyl. This has to be one of the most precious.
The Michael Garrick Sextet have long held a justifiably revered position in the annals of British jazz and this release goes a long way to explaining the reason why.
In 1970 Garrick recorded The Heart is a Lotus with Norma Winstone, it was released on Argo. Prelude to Heart is a Lotus, recorded two years earlier for a BBC radio broadcast, has never been available until now,
All compositions are by Garrick who sadly died in November 2011.
They are cracking pieces and show everyone off to advantage including the mystery tenor man on Sweet and Sugary Candy. He's not listed on the sleeve and it's not Don Rendell as the tenor can be heard riffing behind Rendell's soprano. I guess it's Jim Phillip although the album details only list him as being on flute.
Carr shines throughout, mainly muted, with suggestions of Miles. Goode does his Slam Stewart bowed vocal impression and the leader plays two fisted piano. Oh yes and Tompkins kicks it along like a contemporary George Wettling.
On Webster's Mood - Rendell is listed as playing alto although it does have a tenor sound. He switches to flute for Song by the Sea. Temple Dancer has some exotic wailing by the horns and suitably Asian sounds come from the rhythm section.
Little Girl is quite beautiful painting a rich tapestry of harmonic colour. Carr is at his most Milesian here. Rendell lyricises on soprano over Goode's bass.
I'm not sure if something recorded in 1968 qualifies as my record of the year but if it does it's a front runner.
This album contains a varied selection of material recorded in January and February 1966.
I first heard Michael Garrick doing "Poetry and Jazz" in Coventry in 1962. I have had this CD for several years. I have mixed feelings on how to grade this album that was recorded in 1966.
Firstly the title track "Black Marigolds" played solo by Garrick on harpsichord is a perfect gem and in itself is worth the value of the complete album. (A long 14 minute version played by quintet is recorded elsewhere and is even better!)
The musicians here are MG (also plays piano and celeste), Ian Carr (tpt / flg), Joe Harriott (alto), Don Rendell, Tony Coe (sax), Dave Green (b), and two drummers: Trevor Tomkins and Colin Barnes. Not all play on every track.
With the above instrumentation, and the fact that some feature a poet (John Smith?), one may realise that this is not a conventional modern jazz album from the period. The most obviously jazz number is "Webster's Mood" but after that it is a selection of poetry (especially composed for musical backing) or music with an English churchy (or in the case of "Black Marigolds": Sanskrit) influence.
R. Bawden jazz fan
Pianist / composer Michael Garrick has been an icon of British Jazz for the last five decades. His exquisite touch on the keyboards, deep lyricism and unparalleled inventiveness as a composer characterize his entire legacy over time, which has very little rivalry or precedence. This album presents Garrick in three different settings, emphasizing his immense versatility as a composer and player. As usual, he wrote all the music included here. The main body of the music is played by a magnificent septet, which comprised of the best Jazz players on the British scene at the time: Garrick – piano, Ian Carr – trumpet, Joe Harriott – sax, Don Rendell – sax, Tony Coe – sax, Dave Green – bass and Trevor Tomkins – drums. Garrick’s exquisite compositions and the exemplary performances by the players are just perfect. Then come several pieces, which continue Garrick’s involvement with the “Jazz and Poetry” movement, which feature poet John Smith reciting his poetry accompanied by smaller ensembles (mainly trio, where Colin Barnes plays the drums). Smith wrote specific pieces of poetry to be performed with specific Jazz players, creating a unique experience in the process. Last come a few pieces where Garrick turns to two atypical for Jazz instruments - harpsichord and celeste – using them in a trio format, emphasizing again his restless pioneering fever. Overall a beautiful album, full of surprises and wonderful moments and a superb document of the era and Garrick’s musical legacy.
I’ve been amazed by Michael Garrick ever since I first heard him in the Don Rendell/Ian Carr 5tet; but as much as I’ve revered his unorthodox piano playing and compositions, not only wasn’t I prepared for this as my esteem and admiration for the man skyrocket after having overcome the initial impressions of bewilderment (and yes, some rejection), having sat back with ears wide open, and ridden of prejudices decided to apprehend all the subtleties of his art and genius! Uhh! The big words? No, not exactly!
Because this is a surprisingly multifaceted work, and although it could seem obvious that no less than a 7tet would be necessary to give shape and live to his daring compositions, reality is that that is just a part of this masterpiece, small in number of tracks albeit much larger in running time.
For the most traditional pieces, that is traditional in Garrick’s way, those pieces that those such as I who would expect the entire album to be made of, like in some sort of Rendell/Carr group manner with a twist, he actually did enlist the help of the quintet, that is Ian Carr on trumpet and flugelhorn, Don Rendell tenor an soprano saxes, Dave Green bass and Trevor Tomkins drums, enlarged with alto saxophonist Joe Harriott and Tony Coe on tenor: the enchanting Blues of “Webster’s Mood”, its slippery and oily melodies given by a velvety ensemble timbre, laden with emotional solos while Garrick intermittently makes his unexpected pirouettes which render it all but predictable, the Hard-Bop feast of “Good Times” showcasing the high level of individual musicianship and how a talented arranger and cast director Garrick is, constantly changing the ways to present the piece, either by the entire group, by duets, trios, or quartets, solitary presentations by tenor or piano, or each and everyone taking a few bars in a hallucinating, around the clock, succession; Breathtaking! Or the most beautiful soprano sax sung melodies of “Ursula”, taken to heaven by Rendell’s no less ravishing solo, as he rides the tranquil yet bouncy ¾ time, followed by a no less inspired Carr.
Jazz and Poetry, same as all sorts of Music and poetry genres, eventually makes no sense unless one understands the words; poet John Smith reads his words so articulate and clearly that even I can understand at least 90% of it ; written with specific musicians in mind, the sequence of poems in “Jazz for five” is either complemented by a duet of piano and bass, by the drums (magnificent solitary work by Colin Barnes who replaces Tomkins on some tracks!), by the tenor sax or by a trumpet fronted quartet, whereas on “A Jazz Nativity” the spoken voice alternatively seeks support on the ensemble or receives replies from trumpet, tenor or alto, which seemingly play the three wise men of Bible fame.
The remaining chapters can eventually make purists cringe, yet they are no less alluring besides being a good measure of Garricks’s eclecticism and broad-minded artistic visions; the highly visual “Spiders”, both intense and delicate, with never heard before harpsichord tones and slurred jazzy digitations, and the raga-shaped title track driven by an underlying, trance inducing rhythm, upon which renewed motifs stack up in a magically beautiful and timeless manner, are solo Harpsichord pieces, whereas the celebratory “Carolling” is driven by a Bach-esque pulsation, packed with keyboards chops and built like a Jazz piece with Green also soloing and Barnes trading fours with the other two; Finally,“What are Little Girls?” is also a trio piece but with Garrick on celeste this time; joyous, and obviously chiming and luminous it also feeds on a call and response contrast with the bass while the drums keep a discreet broom-sticks beat.
Truly enlightening in spite of the pre-announced blackness…
Recorded at University College London on the 14th March 1966.
Subversion Through Jazz examines the beginning of the British progressive jazz (BPJ) movement from 1956 to 1964, attempting to identify and plot the progress of its coming into being. This eight-year period of inception was set against the backdrop of two specifically relevant world events: the failed Hungarian revolution in 1956; and the Cuban Missile Crisis, a potentially apocalyptic nuclear standoff between the United States and the USSR in the Gulf of Mexico in 1962. Like many art forms in the UK, British jazz underwent a paradigm shift during this period, transforming from imitator to innovator. A new generation of post-war musicians - spearheaded by the West Indian alto-saxophonist Joe Harriott - discovered their own sound, no longer aping American Jazz traditions but instead seeking out their own methods of expression within improvisation, embracing hugely diverse influences such as Blues, Indian music, twentieth-century Classical music, Rock’n’roll, African music, classic and contemporary poetry and literature, Caribbean music, Folk, R&B, and Soul, forging them into a uniquely British identity which would in turn influence musicians across the globe.
The obsession with British art and culture which was all-pervasive in the pop and rock music of the UK from 1965 onwards had its roots in BPJ. The musicians involved in the movement were the first post-war contemporary jazz players outside the U.S. to meld an artistic nationalism to their music, introducing non-musical influences from the worlds of British and European art and literature, left-wing politics and musical influences from outside the sphere of jazz, such as the abstract classical compositions of Cornelius Cardew and Anton Webern, brass bands, and the music-hall traditions of Victorian and Edwardian Britain.
The location of most of these artistic developments – an area of roughly four square miles in and around Soho, London - was simultaneously the covert battleground of the British Secret Service department MI5 and their adversaries the Soviet Russian KGB, an old empire pitted against a new one, and at least one significant Communist of concern to MI5, the Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm, took a very serious interest in the British jazz scene at this time. Inspired by his cousin, the British jazz record producer and label-owner Denis Preston, and the Italian Communist intellectual Antonio Gramsci, Hobsbawm embedded himself in the movement, authoring a study of it in 1959 entitled The Jazz Scene, for which he adopted, as jazz writer for the New Statesman magazine, the pseudonym Francis Newton, an alias he had been developing for three years prior, unbeknownst to the British agents who were surveilling him.
As the classic 1950s and 60s jazz recordings slip into the public domain, more and more labels fall over themselves to reissue iconic albums in the hope of making a few shekels. If you're one of those jazz fans who's becoming a little wearied by the torrent of re-releases of the same old Prestige, Columbia and Blue Note stuff, it might well be worth investigating Jazz in Britain, an admirable not-for-profit label and book publisher whose mission it is to unearth nuggets from the UK's still-undervalued jazz legacy.
So far this year JiB has put out excellent archive albums by Joe Harriot, Tubby Hayes, Ray Russell and others; and this live offering from 1966 by the star- studded Garrick band may be their most important release yet. Recorded live at Garrick's alma mater University College London, this documents Robinson's only appearance with Garrick's outfit, and the four hornsmen are in absolutely imperious form throughout, blowing hard and with a commitment and invention that gives the lie to that old myth that Brits just can't cut it in jazz when compared to the Yanks; and Garrick, Goode and Tomkins are an appropriately thunderous rhythm section. Three of the four tunes on this album are by the leader, demonstrating yet again that Garrick is a composer ripe for (re)discovery; the fourth is a lengthy version of Duke's ‘Jones’, which is essentially mid-1960s progressive jazz with a big grin on its face, and all the better for it.
The mono recording, while not exactly ‘high fidelity’ is eminently listenable, with all the instrumentalists coming through loud and clear; and the energy of the gig definitely comes through, which is the most important thing. An essential document of one of the 1960s UK scene's best bands, then; but be warned: only 350 copies have been pressed, so hurry!
Hidden beneath this deceptively amateurish cover art is a suprisingly polished modern jazz album, circa 1965, with tips of the hat to the modal jazz of Miles, the soulful vibe of the Blue Note label and even the harmonically sophisticated and emotionally resonant small-group arrangements of Oliver Nelson. Like Nelson's work, it has an almost cinematic quality. Pianist/leader Michael Garrick comps with a hint of early Cecil Taylor behind the sextet's front line, which inludes altoist Joe Harriott and trumperter Ian Carr, who have definitely been listening to Ornette and Don Cherry. The whole thing is swinging and tasteful and sophisticated, and it won't ruffle any feathers, but it also has an adventuresome, risk-taking spirit that holds your interest from the first note. Even the quality of the recording is spectacular. 'Promises' is most definitely an album that lays to rest any cliches about British jazz as being locked in the trad-jazz era of the 1930s. It's music that is of-the-moment and state-of-the-art.
Following the release of “October Woman”, British pianist / composer Michael Garrick and his quintet were asked to record a new album soon after. Unfortunately the original quintet member, trumpeter Shake Keane, left UK to join the Kurt Edelhagen’s radio Big Band in Germany – one of the best Jazz Orchestras on the continent – where he was to stay for the next four years. Garrick swiftly recruited a replacement, turning to his “half boss” (in the Don Rendell / Ian Carr quintet) trumpeter Ian Carr to step into Keane’s shoes with a few days notice just before the recording. Since his writing was becoming more complex and elaborate, Garrick also expanded his quintet into a sextet with the addition of saxophonist / clarinetist Tony Coe. Legendary saxophonist Joe Harriott, bassist Coleridge Goode and drummer Colin Barnes, the original quintet members, completed the lineup. The album includes all original music, composed by Garrick, with the exception of one arrangement of a George Gershwin tune. Of the 10 tracks present, 7 are played by the sextet and 3 by a piano trio, where bassist Dave Green replaces Goode. The music is absolutely marvelous, with Garrick’s writing reaching maturity and self-confidence. The performances are stellar, with Harriott playing perhaps more beautifully than on any other album. The entire album is complete uninterrupted musical bliss from start to finish and a remarkable example of early European Jazz of the highest quality. Even the most dedicated Garrick followers will have to admit that this is definitely one of his best achievements, a magic moment captured for posterity for us to enjoy and revere. Essential stuff!
Michael Garrick Quintet Featuring Joe Harriott And Shake Keane
1965
October Woman
01. Seven Pillars 4:42
02. Little Girl 5:22
03. Sweet And Sugary Candy 6:23
04. Blue Scene 4:01
05. Anthem 4:03
06. Return Of An Angel 5:44
07. Sketches Of Israel 3:47
08. October Woman 5:20
09. Echoes 5:14
10. Fairies Of Oneiros 3:12
11. Wedding Hymn
12. Anthem
Alto Saxophone – Joe Harriott (tracks: 1 to 3, 5, 7 to 9, 11, 12)
Double Bass [Bass] – Coleridge Goode
Drums – Colin Barnes
Piano, Liner Notes – Michael Garrick
Trumpet – Shake Keane (tracks: 1 to 3, 5, 7 to 9, 11, 12)
Tracks 1 to 10 recorded November 9, 1964.
Originally issued in 1965 on Argo Records LP (ZDA 33).
Tracks 11 & 12 recorded April 18, 1965.
Originally issued in 1965 on Argo Records EP (EAF 92).
Michael Garrick was an English jazz pianist who today is little known in the U.S. Born in 1933, Garrick was a self-taught musician who majored in English literature. Emerging from college in 1959 into a British world where mod jazz and poetry were trending, Garrick wound up the musical director of Poetry & Jazz in Concert, a touring ensemble of performance artists. From 1965 to 1969, Garrick led a contemporary jazz group that included saxophonist Don Rendell and trumpeter Ian Carr. But in 1964, Garrick recorded an unusual quintet album called October Woman that was an extension of the touring group.
Recorded in London for the U.K.'s Argo label in November '64, this unusual album featured Shake Keane (tp), Joe Harriott (as), Coleridge Goode (b), Colin Barnes (d) with Simon Preston (org) and the Elizabethan Singers. I say unusual because each song has a different sound and feel. At the time, Garrick worked in the Jazz & Poetry group with Goode and Barnes, adding Keane and Harriott for this recording. Ten of the 12 tracks are conventional in that they feature a defined melody. Anthem, which appears twice, has a free-jazz approach.
According to Garrick's liner notes, the songs were written specifically for this group. Seven Pillars was a result of the song's original time signature—7/4—which was changed to 4/4. Little Girl has a Neal Hefti feel. Sweet and Sugary Candy is a mid-tempo swing tune and purposefully retro, complete with a Slam Stewart sing-along as Goode bows an arco bass solo. Blue Scene has a soul-jazz feel and according to Garrick is a rap on clubs that stopped featuring jazz in exchange for music with a big beat. Garrick writes that Return of an Angel and Echoes are “as descriptive as their titles may allow them to be."
As for Sketches of Israel, Garrick writes that the song is a “slow, rhapsodic theme written in the first place for a descriptive poem by Jeremy Robson. Here we give it quite a different treatment." Fairies of Oneiros is a tribute to the god of dreams and “the beings that hover on the threshold of our consciousness, never letting us see too much." Wedding Hymn is a fascinating Elizabethan classical organ work with trumpet and drums that switches to jazz along the way. The singers also can be found in the second Anthem.
This is an exceptional and fascinating album with superb players and a poetic, moody mission. A must own, which is true of most of Garrick's albums.
Original release limited to 99 copies apparently for tax reasons.
Often capricious, frequently didactic, yet invariably passionate about his music, the jazz pianist and composer Mike Garrick, who has died aged 78 following a heart operation, was at the forefront of British modern jazz from the 1960s to the present. Creatively restless, Garrick allied himself to jazz innovators such as the Jamaican altoist Joe Harriott and to poets with a penchant for jazz, while also building a considerable repertoire of extended orchestral pieces and acting as a tireless proselytiser for jazz in schools. All this, while leading his own small groups and a much-lauded big band.
"It's like a tonic to be in front of a [big] band," he said in 2005. "One feels so grateful for the thing actually happening, knowing that musicians have come because they want to be there." Although The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings described Garrick as "a national treasure", wider recognition eluded him until 2010 when, somewhat belatedly in the view of many, he was appointed MBE.
Garrick's impressive compositional range extended to major choral works and liturgical pieces as well as more conventional big-band scores; his A Zodiac of Angels, a 70-minute work, performed in 1988, combined jazz soloists, a symphony orchestra and chorus, and choreography. It is somehow typical of the man that he was working on a new composition and planning for upcoming concerts while in hospital awaiting surgery.
Garrick was born in Enfield, north London, and became enthused about jazz after hearing boogie-woogie on wartime radio broadcasts. He was largely self-taught, opting after national service to read English literature at University College London, and graduating in 1959. Having already started his first groups while at UCL, he retained an abiding love for England's literature and countryside, often infusing his onstage discourses and his compositions with literary references.
His note for Green and Pleasant Land, a jazz string quartet piece commissioned by the Little Missenden festival in 2002, stated: "My love of England is embodied in Shakespeare, Delius, Keats, Britten and the breathtaking landscapes that still form the greater part of 'this sceptr'd isle'." This perhaps explains why the jazz musician and writer Ken Rattenbury described him as "the JMW Turner of jazz composition". The jazz writer Steve Voce said: "It's not pretentious to describe him as the British Duke Ellington."
Committed to modern jazz, Garrick took a shine to the radical stance evinced by Harriott and also to poetry, helping in 1961 to kickstart Poetry and Jazz in Concert as its music director, improvising at the piano with Harriott and the trumpeter Shake Keane, as Jeremy Robson, Laurie Lee, Adrian Mitchell, Vernon Scannell, Spike Milligan or John Smith declaimed their poems. He was also a key member of the much-heralded Don Rendell-Ian Carr Quintet, working steadily with this band from 1965 to 1969, their many recordings (lately reissued) notable for Garrick's own quirkily inventive piano and his many compositions, among them Black Marigolds (1966) and Dusk Fire (1965, this title later adopted for his 2010 autobiography).
Always the free-thinker, Garrick formed a sextet in 1966 and used Norma Winstone's voice as a frontline instrument, in harmony with the trumpeter Henry Lowther and saxophonist Art Themen. The vocally adventurous Winstone became an enduring associate, continuing to appear and record with Garrick. This was also the period when he began to compose on a grander scale, starting with his Jazz Praises, a series of religious pieces for his sextet and a large choir, first performed and recorded in St Paul's Cathedral in 1968, with Garrick playing the organ.
Culturally voracious, Garrick, who read widely, became interested in Indian classical music, employing Indian scales and techniques in a number of his compositions. He also channelled his passion for jazz into education, taking his Travelling Jazz Faculty and sextet into schools up and down Britain, running residential summer courses for aspiring players under the auspices of the Guildhall School and his own Jazz Academy, and teaching at the Royal Academy and Trinity College. In 1970, he attended the prestigious Berklee College of Music in Boston as a mature student, gaining an open fellowship.
Garrick's polymathic nature and desire to communicate his enthusiasm sometimes led to difficulties; excessively prolix in his bandstand announcements, he could often exasperate, this sometimes obscuring his true worth as a performer. Inspired in part by Ellington and Bill Evans, Garrick never took the easy path; at his best, as shown on releases on his Jazz Academy label, he was a brilliantly intuitive small-group pianist, always sounding like nobody but himself.
More recently, Garrick had continued to compose and to perform regularly in clubs and churches with his big band and small groups. Excited to have met up with the young singer Nette Robinson, he revelled in her pitch-perfect intonation as she interpreted his demanding compositions. Their Lyric Trio (completed by the virtuoso saxophonist Tony Woods) and Garrick's new quartet tribute to the Modern Jazz Quartet had seemed set fair to run and run.
Michael Garrick, jazz pianist, organist, bandleader and composer, born 30 May 1933; died 11 November 2011
Originally privately pressed in 1964 in an edition of just 99 copies, Moonscape is possibly the most rare, most desirable and certainly most valuable modern British jazz record ever made. One of the super-scarce 10" originals could cost you $4000 in mint condition. This is the first time Moonscape has had a proper release, and the first time it has been available on CD. Recorded in London in 1964, Moonscape is pianist and modern British jazz legend Michael Garrick's first album. Until now, and for 99 obvious reasons, very few people have ever heard this stunning lunar jazz. As interest in modern British jazz and Michael Garrick has increased over the last decade, this recording has gained almost mythical status, with possibly only two copies coming to market in that time. Moonscape is a solid keystone in the development of Britain's jazz sound, with a slightly floaty, drifting essence to the music, and an early British first foray into "The New Thing" -- the free jazz sound, even though the steps here are tentative and a touch naive. Highlights on such a short album are frequent, and current Trunk favorites include the awesome and blissfully sad "Sketches Of Israel," and the complex 6/8 trip "Man Have You Ever Heard." This is British modern jazz at its very best. Even though the space race had not really begun by 1964, and man was still a full five years away from a moonwalk, Garrick was no doubt onto something here, his prescient view of sound, jazz and space predating the rush of international cosmic jazz that punctuated the late 1960s and early 1970s. So, welcome at last to Moonscape, and thank heavens there are more than 99 copies this time around.
Moonscape is the first trio offering by famed British pianist, organist, and composer Michael Garrick. Garrick, who has since worked with everyone from Joe Harriott to Neil Ardley to Ian Carr to Don Rendell, is also a man of letters and has conducted and participated in more than 2,300 concerts of jazz and poetry. This set is the true Holy Grail of modern British jazz, and thanks to famed collector and blogger Jonny Trunk of Trunk Records, is available (on both CD and vinyl) widely for the first time since it was released in an edition of 99 copies on 10" 33-rpm vinyl in 1964. This is not some flawed early attempt at being the leader of a trio -- Garrick was already one. Instead, it is a remarkable, diverse collection of six tunes (all original compositions) that pointed the way for the era of British jazzmen to come. One can hear in this set the beautifully experimental (yet playful and accessible) rhythmic pointillism that Paul Bley was messing about with around the same time in "A Face in the Crowd" (with some arco playing by bassist David Green), initially composed to accompany a poem by Jeremy Robson. The opening title track is a whispering inquiry into minor keys and the use of space. Colin Barnes' drumming is used not so much to keep a beat but to create spaces between phrases -- some of which are dissonant but not angular. But that's just the intro. What emerges is a scalar set of contingencies around three or four different shapes by Garrick. This is early vanguard Brit jazz but it swings, too. And speaking of swing, these cats got to show what they were about in the blistering bop of "Music for Shattering Supermarkets." Easily the most lyrical track here is the ballad "Sketches of Israel." It commences with a subtle shimmering theme and chord pattern that increases and decreases dynamically, with some startling punched-up crescendo work and a fine bass solo by Green. The hard bop of "Man, Have You Heard" is rooted deeply in early English folk music and the blues with a set of harmonics worthy of Brubeck's best work. And this one, too, swings like mad. Finally, "Take-Off" returns to the notion of explorations of texture, tension, and space. Just under three minutes in length, it walks the line of free jazz without ever stepping quite onto it. Rhythmically organized around three seemingly simple chord patterns, the rhythm section offers real force, which Garrick engages by breaking his figures down and alternating them while building them again. This is an extraordinary and visionary piece of work that deserves its status, with only one complaint: the playing format of the 10" LP only afforded less than half an hour's playing time. This little slab comes in at 22 and a half minutes, which leaves the listener who encounters this for the first time breathless and wanting more. It also stands up to repeated spins as an essential piece of work. Great thanks to Garrick and Trunk.
Shake Keane, The Hastings Girls Choir, The Gordon Langford Orchestra - Rising Star.
Tracks 5-8 previously released on EP as
Shake Keane And The Michael Garrick Quartette - A Case Of Jazz
1964 was a pretty special year, especially for groovy jazz in Britain. Not only did it see the release of Moonscape by the Michael Garrick Trio (JBH 022CD) but also the birth of these fine and exceptionally rare recordings. Modern, jazzy, exotic and progressive, early British jazz rarely sounded so good or beautiful. In 1964 the modern British jazz scene was growing, progressing and bursting out in creative musical rashes. Following the release of Moonscape (the UK's rarest British jazz LP), Michael Garrick teamed up with horn legend Shake Keane to cut an EP of modern ideas in a quartet setting called A Case Of Jazz. It was issued the same year in a run of just 99 copies. At the same time, flugelhorn maestro Shake Keane was working with several arrangers and set-ups, one of the results being a peculiar (and possibly unreleased) acetate of 4 cues: two recorded with The Hastings Girls Choir, two in a small but lively and slightly Latin combo. Coming directly from Michael Garrick's own archive, these exceptionally rare eight cues from 1964 have now been brought together for this unusual and exciting release. Opening with two cues with Keane and the Hastings Girls Choir, the music is ethereal and strangely exotic. Moving then through a fine British bossa nova and into the quartet recordings, we find the music pleasing, progressive (for 1964), creative and exciting. Also of note is the mighty fine "Sun Maiden," which has the kind of classic piano riff and repetitive regal rhythm so sought-after by many jazz collectors. These tracks and complete album are worthy additions to the growing archive of the classic modern British period jazz, and feature two major artists flourishing early in their careers.
Trunk Records, founded by vinyl collector in extremis Jonny Trunk, has continually reissued the weird, the arcane, and the rare in everything from library and soundtrack records to British jazz. That said, their 2007 re-release of Michael Garrick's impossibly hard to find 10" album Moonscape is a high point in its ever expanding catalog. In Rising Stars, Trunk pairs four tunes featuring Shake Keane from unreleased acetates in Garrick's private collection, and four from a 45 EP of a short-lived quartet featuring the pair, as well as bassist Cleridge Goode and drummer Bobby Orr, all recorded circa 1964. The first two tracks feature Keane's gorgeous flügelhorn fronting a rhythm section, and the Hastings Girls Choir conducted by Edmund Niblett. The title track is a moody piece of exotica, with Keane blowing mellifluously and bluesily atop hand percussion, a harp, and an electric organ simulating strings. "A Song of Romance" is simply "Blue Moon" with different lyrics; it's haunting and beautiful. The next two cuts feature Keane as a member of the Gordon Langford Orchestra. The most notable is "Bossa Nova Trieste," a killer bossa jam that Keane masters in his recitation of the melody and in his solo. It's a rare bit of British bossa from the period. The final four tracks -- and real treasures -- are from a 45 EP by the Shake Keane & Michael Garrick Quartette. Keane uses a mute throughout. On "Fish Babies," Garrick plays large, expanded chords in a swinging hard bop strutter. "Sun Maiden," a Garrick tune, has its roots in a Malaysian folk melody, and is both haunting and lyrical (31 years after being recorded here, Garrick and his big band performed it for the king of Malaysia). It doesn't so much swing as saunter quixotically. "Watershute" is a futuristic Garrick number with Keane playing a beautiful, straight-ahead lyric jazz akin to the American West Coast sound, while Garrick's piano offers a vanguard blues to counter. It swings breezily but feels angular. The final cut is a cover of Pat Smythe's "Regrets," a straight jazz-blues ballad with lovely flügelhorn work from Keane; even with a mute, his requisite warmth and deep lyricism contrast with Garrick's forward-looking harmonic invention; the two elements serve to complement one another extremely well. Only 27 minutes in length, Rising Stars is an historically fascinating and musically satisfying aural view of two British jazz giants at the beginning of their professional lives.
01. Smilin' 02. Let Us Now Praise Famous Men 03. From Here to New York City 04. Time Can't Take it Away 05. Hideaway 06. No Compromise 07. Goodbye to a Friend
Recorded and mixed on march 12th - 17th 1974 at Dierks Studio, Stommeln/Germany.
No Compromise is the group's fourth album and probably the album whose line-up resembles the most the previous album, although there are still a few changes. As Knaak ceded his drum stool to Corredy and Palmer-James ceded the guitar to Frank Diez, but remained active in writing the lyrics of over half the tracks. Again released on Brain in 74, the tracks were self-produced, but apparently more by individuals than the collective and the stunning but tacky artwork of the gatefold is stunning, but not necessarily in a good way, while the inner gatefold shows pictures of the band live.
The opening 7-mins+ Motown/Stax-like Smilin' track is probably more funk than the whole previous GOTTC album held, but somehow, there is not a wasted moment in it: incredibly tight playing. The almost 6-mins Praise Famous Men is to reminiscent of BS&T material to be taken seriously, Diez pulling a Butterfield, Bischoff pulling a Colomby, Marvos pulling a Kooper and leader Berka pulling an Ian Anderson on the flute, but the bluesy-soul track is too long and end up irritating. From here to NYC is another 6- mins+ affair that pull its influences from 60's US R'nB, proggying it up a bit through some time sigs and flute solos. The same can be said for Time Can't Take It Away, with its great organ solo.
The delicate Hideaway is one of the highlights with its aerial mellotron choirs chords layers, fine guitar solos, etc. as for the mammoth no Compromise, it starts out with a solid brass section pacing, and while Marvos pulls some out-of-this-world synth sounds, Biscoff is sounding a bit like Chris Farlowe and the musicians exchange great licks and obviously enjoy themselves. The closing Goodbye To A Friend is a moody tear-jerker written by new-coming Diez, but Berka intervenes in a emotive sax solo.
As close as possible to BS&T, emergency always managed to avoid to sound as pompous and bombastic (at least in their last two albums, I haven't heard the CBS ones), and while hardly essential to progheads, they might well be worth the detour if you like proggy brass rock.
- Peter Bischof / lead vocals, timbales, percussion
- Bernd Knaak / drums, percussion
Of all the brass rock group that started the decade, almost all of them were either UK or US, but the odd exception went for groups like Czechoslovakia's Flamengo's sole album, and in Germany, Missing Link (sounding a bit like Colosseum) and Emergency, who recorded four albums, but the latter group was only German by its base as it was formed by four Czech/Slovaks refugees, one Englishmen and a German.. But its line-up had considerably changed by their second album Entrance. For their third (and presently reviewed) album, the group mostly notably consisted of Richard Palmer-James (ex- Supertramp and future Crimson lyricist) on guitars, Berka on winds, Veit Marvos on keys and Peter Bischof on vocals & percussion and the brass section was reduced to founding member Berka. With an interesting gatefold artwork playing with light filters, Get Out Of The Country was released on the Brain (their new label after their first two on CBS) label in 73 and was self-produced.
The sextet performs a brass rock that comes often close to BS&T's soul-inflected and often insufferably cheesy material, but Emergency stay on the good side of most proghead's tastebuds. Starting out on the mellotron-laden I Know What's Wrong, where the interplay between all is quite impressive and the tempo quick, ending in a mini drum solo. Bischof's vocals are well heard and proper English pronunciation on Palmer-Lames' lyrics. The following Jeremiah is starting out in full dramatics, sort of fooling us, once the tune gets going, a Winwood-type soulish track that hesitates between prog and Spencer Davis Group. Next up is Take My Hand a typical cheese you'd expect from BS&T, that is borderline insufferable if it wasn't for excellent musicianship. Closing up the side is the Palmer-James pop track Confessions, which doesn't bring much to the album, even if you can detect a slight Supertramp tempo.
The flipside has three short tracks and the jumbo title track. Among the ditties, Bischoff's Early in The morning is a delicate semi-60's tracks that the Moodies could've written, the string arrangements and mellotron certainly helping as well. Next up is a the brassiest track of the album, The Flag, where the Winwood-like vocals, mega-horn arrangements and female choirs And RP-J's wahed-out guitars make this more of a Ford/Motown track than BMW/Munich one. The Following Little Marie continues the bad BS&T cheese and is arguably the most irritating track of the album. However, the monster title track starts out like a Colosseum monster (you'd swear this is a bit like Rope Ladder To The Moon), although Bischoff is no Chris Farlowe, but original member Berka's flute is doing wonders to our ears. There are a few lengths and semi-successful bravura moments from most of the musicians, but the Knaak on drums and Bischof on percussion pulls their straw from the lot and RP-J's closing guitar solo gets the last word.
While I'd never say that Emergency produced an album I would call essential, if you like proggy brass rock, they should not disappoint you much, but you've been warned of the cheesy BS&T side of the group. However the proghead shouldn't let not that deter him, because they (Emergency) are not quite as pompous as BS&T either.
Comprised of German and Czech musicians, Emergency were a brass-dominated jazz-rock band who released two strong albums in the early Seventies before initially imploding. A reworked version of the group (their third by that point) incorporated members of Twenty Sixty-Six and Then, heavy Krautrockers Orange Peel and even King Crimson shortly after, with the results of the new union being the 1973 release, `Get Out to the Country', issued on the legendary German label Brain.
