27 November 2015 (gig)
16 November 2015
In a discussion with some apparently knowledgeable friend they had talked at length about Cream and its members when I asked what they thought of Graham Bond. The response was “What’s he got to do with it – isn’t he the Satanist who killed himself on the tube?”
This album is a brilliant example of what they were missing – on the first track here from the old BBC standard ‘Jazz Club’(from 1963) we have ‘Bluesology’ from the Graham Bond Quartet - Graham Bond on keyboards, John McLaughlin on guitar, Jack Bruce on double bass and Ginger Baker on drums. Needless to say, it is a beautiful Jazz/Blues and features solos to die for from each of the musicians (except Ginger Baker because drum solos hadn’t been invented yet), very much in the style of the time but surprisingly fresh today.
The other surprising thing about this recording is the quality – the BBC believed in recording at top quality for ‘serious’ listeners and captured Bond at a high point in his early development.
The version of ‘Wade In The Water’ from this session is pure magic, showing much of the origins of bands like Deep Purple and The Crazy World of Arthur Brown and superb syncopation between the four musicians.
On the same CD you get a short set featuring Duffy Power that kicks off with a memorable version of ‘I Saw Her Standing There’ which is far grittier and rootsy than the Beatles own version of the same year. ‘Summertime’ shows the softer side of Bond’s band and it is surprising, again, how clean and well recorded the band is.
On the stranger side is a track called ‘Elsie & Ena aka ‘Bring Back The Burch’’ – Bond’s tribute to the stalwarts of Coronation Street and featuring Bond’s sax playing as he guests with The Don Randell Quintet, also featuring a bizarre ‘conversation’ with Dick Heckstall-Smith on soprano sax.
The second disc moves the timeframe forward, this time from Jazz Beat and in his Graham Bond Organization phase with Dick Heckstall-Smith again on Sax and Mike Falana on Trumpet – one of his early meetings with great African musicians. The music is getting wilder and there is more of the early psychedelia in the music as well as some fine jamming.
Short sets with Bond and Brown (Pete Brown, the lyricist behind Cream and a well travelled musician in his own right) doing a ‘Macumbe’ from the BBC Sound Of The Seventies show.
There is definitely a sense of progressing through Bond’s music, especially the way that he ploughed his own trough and skipped the chance of pop stardom in favour of music he felt was ‘of worth’.
The third and fourth CDs continue the BBC’s fascination with Bond with him featuring on a John Peel introduced ‘Top Gear’ session from Maida Vale in 1970 and the Initiation firing on all cylinders, Bond’s organ at the heart of their sound. This is then followed by his appearance on the John Peel Show proper with a dark and heavy version of ‘Love Is The Law’ lightened by flute and strings but with a dark and heavy beat.
The ‘Other Stories’ are a collection of demos and one off recordings of much value but the real worth is in the live recordings from the BBC and they are brilliant.
In addition listen out for some hilarious introductions from the BBC announcers – kudos to Repertoire for keeping them in.
