Album Review: London Underground — Live at the 19th Dream of Dr Sardonicus Festival

One of the most musically luxurious yet overlooked subgenres of the 1960s was soul jazz. While within the jazz world, artists like Cannonball Adderley were finding the sweet spot in which critical and commercial success met, for rock audiences – and for rock-based artists – soul jazz didn’t get the fair shake it deserved. The thing is, even though jazz is in its name, the style has many of the elements that make rock, soul and blues appealing to a wide (if inevitably dwindling) audience.

Happily, even today there are still practitioners of the style. They update the sound a bit with modern devices like synthesizers, but the irresistible grooves and melodies at the heart of soul jazz remain true. And a shining star in this field is London Underground. As is often the case with this sort of music, live-onstage is the best way to experience and/or capture the music, and with that in mind, Live at the 19^th Dream of Dr Sardonicus Festival documents just such a performance.

Listeners who demand a fistful of chords won’t find fulfillment in these grooves. The opening track – a band original – “Billy Silver” rocks and sways between two chords. But what glorious chords they are, topped with mellifluous keyboard and guitar work. The thrilling yet tantalizingly brief reading of The Crazy World of Arthur Brown’s “Fanfare” sounds like a mad mashup of Keith Emerson and Brian Auger, a sort of “Karn Evil 9” as (p)re-imagined by The Trinity.

Soul jazz combines with heavy rock riffage for “Honey Drops.” Lines worthy of Black Sabbath or Deep Purple join an irresistible funky groove. Close listeners will detect bits of lead guitar squalling, but the mix – intentionally, one hopes – focuses more on keyboards and rhythm section.

The straightest jazz joint in the set, “Death March” meditates on a few chords, taking its time to unwind and reveal a fetching, breezy melody. The drum work – great everywhere in the set – is especially exciting here, as is the lead guitar (now seemingly bumped up in the mix).

London Underground digs deep into the grooves of Montgomery’s “Bumpin’ on Sunset,” playing with the melody for more than 11 minutes, not a bit of which is wasted. The tune even takes a momentary prog-psych turn. Nearly as long is another original, “What I Say.” It’s a sinister, simmering spy soundtracker – often twisting and turning on little more than one chord – with gloriously overdriven organ a la Carvan.

The name on the tin (as they say) indicates London, but this outfit is in fact from Florence, Italy. Thrilling stuff to be sure, and worth keeping an eye (ear) on. I was, however, more than a bit disappointed to discover that while the digital version sent to me had six tracks, a fuller version of the set sports four more, including readings of Brian Auger’s “Tropic of Cancer,” Nat Adderley’s “The Jive Samba” and John Barry’s “Midnight Cowboy.” A shame, that. Still, the six tracks I did hear were more than enough to win me over.

UPDATE: As it happens, the different versions mentioned above were in fact released by different labels on different formats. So it’s all good. Great stuff in any form.