th<\/i><\/sup> Dream of Dr Sardonicus Festival<\/i> documents just such a performance.<\/p>\nListeners who demand a fistful of chords won\u2019t find fulfillment in these grooves. The opening track \u2013 a band original \u2013 \u201cBilly Silver\u201d 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\u2019s \u201cFanfare\u201d sounds like a mad mashup of Keith Emerson and Brian Auger, a sort of \u201cKarn Evil 9\u201d as (p)re-imagined by The Trinity.<\/p>\n
Soul jazz combines with heavy rock riffage for \u201cHoney Drops.\u201d 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 \u2013 intentionally, one hopes \u2013 focuses more on keyboards and rhythm section.<\/p>\n
The straightest jazz joint in the set, \u201cDeath March\u201d meditates on a few chords, taking its time to unwind and reveal a fetching, breezy melody. The drum work \u2013 great everywhere in the set \u2013 is especially exciting here, as is the lead guitar (now seemingly bumped up in the mix).<\/p>\n
London Underground digs deep into the grooves of Montgomery\u2019s \u201cBumpin\u2019 on Sunset,\u201d 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, \u201cWhat I Say.\u201d It\u2019s a sinister, simmering spy soundtracker \u2013 often twisting and turning on little more than one chord \u2013 with gloriously overdriven organ a la<\/i> Carvan.<\/p>\n
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\u2019s \u201cTropic of Cancer,\u201d Nat Adderley\u2019s \u201cThe Jive Samba\u201d and John Barry\u2019s \u201cMidnight Cowboy.\u201d A shame, that. Still, the six tracks I did hear were more than enough to win me over.<\/p>\n
UPDATE:<\/strong> 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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":28949,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,41,49,56,57,65],"tags":[5616],"class_list":["post-28948","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-acid-jazz","category-interview","category-new-release","category-prog","category-psych","category-review","tag-london-underground","cat-2-id","cat-41-id","cat-49-id","cat-56-id","cat-57-id","cat-65-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28948","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28948"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28948\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29007,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28948\/revisions\/29007"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28949"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28948"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28948"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28948"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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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 \u2013 and for rock-based artists \u2013 soul jazz didn\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n