Dollar Daze: Brian Auger, Julie Driscoll & The Trinity - Open

BRIAN AUGER, JULIE DRISCOLL & THE TRINITY
Open
1969

Black Cat


At the end of August I scored 400 LPs for $400 from the yard sale of a veteran collector/record fair trader. He was liquidating after buying a Harley and a cottage and there were a few dozen boxes laid out with a handful of people picking through them. It was a lot of superb psych, surf, freakbeat, garage rock and other goodies of the genre with a smattering of soul, doo-wop and jazz. At first I was reticent to grab much since the LPs had no pricing and I knew some of them were worth quite a bit. However, when the gentleman came up and told me everything was a buck, I kinda went off the deep end.

Then, a few weeks back while on a business trip to TO, I poked my head into a thrift store and walked out an hour later with another 100 bucks worth of dollar LPs spanning from soundtracks, R&B, and jazz to comedy, classical and obscure ethnic delights. That means 500 records to get through on top of a crazy hectic schedule and very little time to listen to them and write up posts, let alone rip the vinyl, clean it up then scan and stitch the covers. Rather than do something silly like take another few months off until I could put up something worthwhile, I thought I'd switch it up a bit. That means interspersed amongst the occasional OOP vinyl rip over the next few weeks, I'll also provide a quick write up of some of the albums I grabbed and point you in the direction of someone who has already provided the goods in the blogosphere.

We'll kick things off with Brian Auger, Julie Driscoll & The Trinity's Open, a record that I've been very familiar with since it was introduced to me in the early 90s by my mentor, Sideshow Sid, but one I have never actually owned. Since posts featuring the Hammond B3 have always proven to be quite popular here at Soundological, this is one set I highly recommend to those of you who are not familiar with Auger's oeuvre - often cited as one of the main influences on the acid jazz scene that would come 20 years later.


Elusive Disc sez

One of the icons of London's underground jazzy mod scene, Brian Auger puzzled more than one music critic bringing this crossover to perfection during the mid-late sixties. 1967's Open sees Auger switch to a more hippy folk acid R&B with the help of Julie Driscoll - his female partner already featured in his earlier project, the Steampacket. Driscoll performs in her perfectly trendy disjointed vocal style over Auger's Hammond aural carpet to createsome interesting pop r'n'b tunes culminating in the fabulous cover version of Donovan's "Season Of The Witch".

Dusty Groove sez

Open is great stuff -- one of the amazing early albums from the team of Julie Driscoll and Brian Auger -- kind of a next-generation to the Brit beat group sound of the mid 60s -- one that moves beyond simple R&B modes, to bring in more sophisticated soul and jazz touches! Driscoll's vocals are amazing -- some of the boldest belted out in the British scene at the time -- and Auger's Hammond work really cooks throughout -- at a level that easily makes him one of the best UK organists to hit the scene, amidst some very heady company in the 60s. There's a few bluesy moments, but our favorites are the funky ones -- especially the group's reading of "Season Of The Witch", which is tremendous. Other cuts include "In & Out", "Black Cat", "Goodbye Jungle Telegraph", and "Break It Up". CD also features 5 bonus tracks -- "Red Beans & Rice (parts 1 & 2)", "Save Me", "I've Gotta Go Now", "This Wheel's On Fire", and "The Road To Cairo".

AMG Review
by Thom Jurek

From the outgrowth of Steampacket, a band that included not only Brian Auger and Julie Driscoll, but also a young Rod Stewart, came Auger and Driscoll's collective effort that produced two albums. When Driscoll left in 1969 to pursue a solo career, Auger, drummer Clive Thacker, and bassist Dave Ambrose continued as Brian Auger & the Trinity. Open has been unfairly characterized as a kind of groove jazz rip, one that combines Wes Montgomery, Jimmy McGriff, and the rock sensibilities of the psychedelic era. Whatever. There are many tracks here, from deep grooved funky jazz to lilting ballads and greasy blues numbers and the skronky exotica number "Goodbye Jungle Telegraph."

Auger may not have been as gifted an organist as Alan Price technically, but he could more than hold his own on the Hammond B-3 (as evidenced by the first two tracks here which are instrumentals, "In And Out" and "Isola Nate"). He was also able to pull more sounds out of the instrument than any of his peers. Auger wasn't much of a vocalist, but he could dig deep and get the emotion out of a song — especially in a funky number like "Black Cat," which featured a killer though uncredited studio horn section.

Driscoll's contributions are all on the second half of the album, beginning with the shuffling choogle of Lowell Fulsom's "Tramp," continuing through a moving reading of Pops Staples' "Why (Am I Treated So Bad)," two Auger originals, and concluding in a reading of Donovan's "Season of the Witch" that single-handedly established her reputation as a vocalist of great interpretative ability and emotional dexterity. Almost eight minutes in length, it is the perfect interplay for the quartet with its dark, smoky swirling energy and extant soul groove, and capos the album on a high note, making it a delightful precursor to the classic Streetnoise which was to follow.

Brian Auger - Keyboards, Vocals
Julie Driscoll - Vocals
Gary Boyle - Guitar
Dave Ambrose - Bass
Clive Thacker - Drums


1 Tramp
2 Why (Am I Treated So Bad)
3 A Kind Of Love-In
4 Break It Up
5 Season Of The Witch
6 In & Out
7 Isola Natale
8 Black Cat
9 Lament For Miss Baker
10 Goodbye Jungle Telegraph


Open up a hi-res rip over at The sweet harmonies and be sure to say "thanks!"

Pavement - Pavement (1969)

Nobody's Gonna Sleep Tonight


Double Decker Of A Man


PAVEMENT
Pavement
1969

256+ VBR LAME mp3
Vinyl rip & scans from Crystal CRY 3000

There's been a few rarities posted here in the past but this is the first time SI's dropping a record whose mere existence was in question. Apparently the work of this two-tone troupe is an elusive and much sought-after slice of UK mod and ska history but besides a review in the recently published Galactic Ramble (which I haven't read) it's not often found in the landslide of record collector guides devoted to that time & place.

Outside of catalogue # and track listings, I could only find three other solid, "informative" references (a pic of the cover quickly became the acid test): a current eBay listing (buy it now for 100€), a terse description courtesy Psychedelic Storm records ("Rumoured not to exist album. Flip-back cover.") and a bit better blurb from Berlin's Ubupopland on what 130€ buys you:

Impossible rare and obscure UK white and black group from the late 60s. Play two killer tracks in Funky Soul Mod dancer way, listen to "She wrote me a letter" and also to "Shockproof ". Inclu other cool ska and reggae numbers.

There you have it, the sum total of information available for the inaugural album of short-lived Crystal records. Details are so scant on this release that after two weeks of trawling through hundreds of pages of search results trying to source the players based on their first name, it was obviously a lost cause. Even the tried-and-true methods of investigating the label's house band/preferred session men or touring outfits of the vocalists led to nameless dead ends since the rest of the label's output featured low-rent pop-oriented crooners who were probably uninterested in sharing the spotlight.

Jack Price at the controls

Along with Dominant Music and Crystal Publishing, Crystal Records was formed in 1968 by Jack Price and Jean Domminney. It had a small run of albums and singles, cementing its spot in studio boffin history by being the first label in London to release material recorded using 8 track. Not so surprising since Price was a forward-thinking fellow and one of the first Brits to recognise and jump on the ska/rocksteady/reggay bandwagon. Of course, Jack's happy to tell you about it his own words (and his own CAPSLOCK) on his own website, but here's the edited version of the happenings in 68-70:

DOMINANT MUSIC [signed a] sub-publishing deal with SPARTA/FLORIDA for several copyrights, including the Rock Steady hit SWAN LAKE by THE CATS (a big hit on the continent and made the national charts in the UK).

Swan Lake by The Cats, reputed to
be moonlighting members of
the BBC orchestra ca. '68

[Price] became Label Manager and P.A. to EMILE SHALLET, the Managing Director of MELODISC RECORDS, London (Bluebeat and FAB label) thus gaining considerable experience in the Rock Steady and Reggae scene from the very company that initiated the Reggae industry in Europe... This company had massive national chart successes and large record sales with PRINCE BUSTER on the BB label.

It's the future.
We're living in real gangster times.
We need to take one step beyond.

[Price] produced albums for PHILIPS, MERCURY, FONTANA REDIFFUSION, PYE RECORDS, PRESIDENT RECORDS (JAYBOY LABEL), FLAMINGO MUSIC, SAGA RECORDS, as well as for his own labels, SIOUX RECORDS and CRYSTAL RECORDS. These included rock and roll, folk R&B and Reggae music... Also at this time issued a Reggae album on the CRYSTAL LABEL for NOEL GAY MUSIC PUBLISHERS...

By introducing the Reggae scene to Philips, Pye and Decca Records, he has been accredited to be the first person to make the music available nationwide to all record outlets instead of the limited distribution network which existed at the time

As good as Price might be at accepting the credit he deserves, either he or NGP weren't nearly so generous at giving it on the Pavement liner notes. Hype, on the other hand, there's plenty of. One would expect nothing less since it was the go juice of the a-go-go era and this was the first release on a new label being propelled by a high-powered entertainment corporation currently firing on all cylinders, after all. But would dropping a few family names into the mix be that hard? Who were these guys? Oh wait, maybe that's why this record plummeted into the deepest recesses of obscurity.

It's also telling how Price differentiates the Pavement album as specifically being made for the Noel Gay Organisation, as if to distance himself from the affair. What's up with that? Maybe there's so few copies floating around because they're all sitting in a forgotten Noel Gay warehouse or the record bombed so badly that copies not lucky enough to be among the few sold were destroyed. The copy posted here does have a pinhole bin hole in the bottom corner, so the latter scenario seems a little more likely.

Source: New Zealand Electronic Text Centre of Victoria University

Noel Gay was the stage name of Reginald Armitage who, starting in the late 30s, parlayed his showbiz savvy into an entertainment empire that eventually included Noel Gay Productions. There's a dearth of data on that specific corporate entity but it seemed to serve as the unit of the conglomerate that was responsible for creating product to showcase clients of the Noel Gay Artists management division performing material from the catalogue of Noel Gay Music. Strategically shifting focus to television in the 70s, the Noel Gay Organisation is still running strong. Here's a snippet from the history section of their website:

During the 1960s Noel Gay Artists was a principal agent for a huge number of musical and pop acts including Russ Conway , Peter & Gordon , The Scaffold, Geoff Love, Manuel and His Music of the Mountains , Paul Jones etc. As a music publisher, Noel Gay provided a string of hits for Bernard Cribbins including Hole In the Ground, Right Said Fred and Gossip Calypso . The company also represented the young David Frost (who has remained with the agency ever since) and John Cleese.

While there's ample info circulating on Crystal and Noel Gay, Hubert Pattison is a horse of a different colour altogether. As a songwriter, he may not have burned up the charts but he didn't do so poorly either. Setting aside a few sporadic and indistinct singles under his own name, he saw some small scale success throughout the last half of the swingin' 60s penning songs for other performers on labels like Columbia, Deram, Parlophone, Pye and Fontana. Some of (well, actually most of) the artists who recorded his material include Billie Davis & The LeRoys, Simon Scott, The Attack, The Syn (where two future members of Yes first worked together) and Peter Jay & The Jaywalkers.

For the latter, Pattison wrote "The Hand Don't Fit The Glove," the first single released with the vocals of one of my all-time favourite rock iconoclasts, Terry Reid. An exceptionally talented and fascinating figure, he's infamous for turning down an offer from Jimmy Page which would then then be extended to Robert Plant. Reid was also best bud/roommate to Brian Wilson at the height of his unhinged head trip in the mid-70s and if you happen to see re-runs of Wilson's fish-out-of-water performance on SNL in '76, you'll catch a glimpse of Terry on backing vocals. Thanks to the collaboration of Graham Nash, David Lindley, James Gadson, Plas Johnson, Blue Mitchell, Tim Weisberg and Fred Wesley in that same year, Seed of Memory is one my Desert Island Discs: Rock Edition. For what it's worth, seeing the video of his 1971 performance of "Dean" at Glastonbury was an outright rock 'n' roll revelation.

Four reasons to back up and check that link.

But I digress.

Of minor interest to the library hunters out there, Pattison has a couple KPM connections. A song he wrote for novelty act The Barron Knights was produced in 1967 by Syd Dale (with Landsdowne's Studio's Denis Preston) and he shares songwriter credit with Alan Hawkshaw that same year for a couple tracks recorded by somewhat obscure British Invasion critical darlings The Tremoloes; "Happy Song" and "Norman Stanley James St Claire" which can both be found on the twofer collection Suddenly You Love Me/Chip, Dale, Alan, Rick.

According to those in the know at the Pama Forum, the obscure reggae singer Horatio Soul was actually a pseudonym used by Pattison. Considering that Horatio's signature track was Pattison's "Nobody's Gonna Sleep Tonight" (issued as a single on Crystal and included on Sioux's Unchained compilation a few years later and included as a bonus in the download), it's hard not to believe they were one and the same. No activity detected from "Horatio Soul" after that but previously he had released a 7" on the nascent Island label in '67 - the general consensus seems to be it has value only to completist collectors of Blackwell's imprint.

Kneeling Nude Reflection with Fan
by Hubert Pattison (1974)

Besides his dozen or so songwriting and production credits, gathering biographical info on Pattison was like trying to nail down a certain popular brand-name gelatinous foodstuff. A few signs point to an art career in the 70s but that presumption is primarily based on the relative uniqueness of his name. Plug it into the Google and you'll get songwriting credits from mid-to-late 60s London, auctions of early-to-mid 70s paintings by a London artist with that name (the piece above was on UK eBay recently) and then finally a handful of spotty genealogy search results from nowhere near the UK - and from decades, or even centuries, prior to the 60s. Did I mean Pattinson? NO DAMMIT!

Finally, there's this citation from the July 5th, 1976 edition of The New Yorker magazine:

GENESIS. 41 E. 57th St.: Drawings, paintings, and sculptures by contemporary British artists, including works by Hubert Pattison, whose colored drawing of a red-eyed crying young woman stands out, and John Howard, who paints the élite at their cocktails Through Sept. 11. (Open Saturdays and Monday, July 5.)

Although the Genesis art gallery is long gone, the same East Village building continues to be used for the same purpose some 30 years later, most recently housing the Bonni Benrubi and Zabriskie galleries. Unlike that piece of New York real estate, the band did not withstand the test of time. Then again, thanks to vinyl and the blog of a dedicated music lover, in a way, it did.


Dexter - ?
Pat - ?
John - ?
Tony - ?
Geoff - ?
Mick - ?


1 Nobody's Gonna Sleep Tonight
2 Boomba Man
3 Saffron
4 Carnival Joe
5 Lela
6 Double Decker Of A Man
7 She Wrote Me A Letter
8 Rhythm Of Life
9 Oh My Head
10 Turn Around Baby
11 Shockproof
12 She'll Always Love Me


Coincidentally, I scooped this one up in the very same dollar bin where I found the Guy Warren album posted here just over a year ago. Without knowing it at the time, I got change back from a fiver for joints worth over $300 in the collectors' market! Get out there and dig kids! BTW, speaking of über rarities and Guy Warren, it's highly recommended you head over to the new Fat Toro blog for Warren's legendary Afro Jazz album and other jaw-dropping rarities! Seriously, don't sleep.

In the meantime, Soundological offers you the unique opportunity to relish this skadelic relic HERE or HERE.

Johnny Almond Music Machine - Patent Pending

Boomp3.com
Boomp3.com

JOHNNY ALMOND MUSIC MACHINE
Patent Pending
1969

76 MB
256+ VBR LAME mp3
Vinyl rip & scans from Deram DES 18030


A sweet slice of bluesy mod jazz from the swingin' late 60s London scene, wherein Johnny was successful due to having the right combination of chops, taste and youth needed to make it in the milieu. He later wound up in Mark-Almond (along with bassist Roger Sutton), one of the better UK prog outfits of the 70s. Another proto-progster on the session was Alan White, who late replace Bill Bruford in Yes. Read on for more...

AMG Bio by Bruce Eder
John Almond (also sometimes referred to as Johnny Almond) was a ubiquitous figure on the British blues-rock scene of the '60s, playing with the likes of Alan Price and John Mayall before partnering up with multi-instrumentalist Jon Mark in the Mark-Almond Band.

Born in Enfield, Middlesex, in 1946, Almond displayed an interest in music from an early age, helped by the fact that his father was a drummer -- although percussion was only one of the categories of instrument on which he started to learn. He was also quick to learn from his father's collection of records, which included a lot of '40s jazz by the likes of Benny Goodman and Woody Herman. Alto saxophone became his first instrument, but he also became proficient on tenor sax and eventually achieved professional mastery on seven others, including various keyboard instruments and the vibraphone.

He had turned professional before finishing high school and played in various groups as a teenager, including a big band under the direction of Wally Johnson. His late teens coincided with the British beat boom, but Almond was working with sounds and instruments far removed from what was sweeping popular music out of Liverpool and Manchester. Rather, he led a jazz combo of his own for a time and played with a group called Tony Knight's Chess Men before he found an extended berth, lasting a couple of years in a relatively prominent young outfit, Zoot Money's Big Roll Band. Following Money's breakup of the band (to join Eric Burdon's psychedelic-era Animals), he joined the Alan Price Set, and then signed on to John Mayall's Bluesbreakers in June of 1969. By the end of the year, with the encouragement of producer Mike Vernon, he had cut his first solo album, Patent Pending, credited to the Johnny Almond Music Machine, on which he played a half-dozen instruments. A year later came his second solo album, Hollywood Blues, also credited to the Johnny Almond Music Machine.

His biggest success came, however, when he joined up with his fellow Bluesbreaker alumnus, arranger/multi-instrumentalist Jon Mark to form the Mark-Almond Band, which lasted for most of the '70s (with a breakup in the middle) and generated a lot of great press and reviews, even if they didn't sell huge numbers of records after the early part of the decade. Since the late '70s, Almond has worked primarily as a session musician, but his name recognition is such that his 1969-1970 solo albums have found an audience on compact disc in the 21st century, at least in Japan and Europe.


Dusty Groove review
A stone groover from British multi-instrumentalist Johnny Almond -- stepping out here on a range of instruments that includes tenor, alto, flute, organ, vibes, and mellotron! Like Almond's other session from the time, the set's got a tightly arranged groove that feels a lot like some of the best funky soundtrack work of the late 60s -- an approach that has the larger band vamping in a mix of electric and acoustic instrumentation, while Almond soars out on expressive solos that nicely shift with the feel of each track! A few numbers take on a slightly exotic feel that we really love -- using heavy percussion and a bit of effects to emphasize the groove -- and a good part of the credit for the strength of the album should go to drummer Alan White, who's really cutting it up nicely here! Titles include a version of Yusef Lateef's "Before Dawn", plus the original numbers "Tales Of Junior", "Solar Level", "Voodoo Forest", "Pequeno Novo", and "To RK", a great tribute to Roland Kirk!


Johnny Almond - Sax [Tenor, Alto, Bari], Flute, Alto Flute, Organ, Vibraphone, Mellotron, Bass Clarinet
Steve Hammond - Acoustic Guitar, Electric Guitar
Roger Sutton - Bass, Claves
Alan White - Drums, Congas, Cowbell, Percussion
Jimmy Crawford - Electric Guitar
Johnny Wiggins - Piano, Organ
Geoff Condon - Trumpet, Flugelhorn

Producer - Mike Vernon


1 Ensingle
2 Before Dawn
3 Voodoo Forest
4 Solar Level
5 To R.K.
6 Reversed For Two Horns
7 Pequeno Nova
8 Tales Of Junior


I know My Favourite Records upped this a long time ago but I think this one sounds quite a bit fuller. No disrespect, JazzyPier! Especially since MFS is where I was finally able to hear his follow up, Hollywood Blues! If you haven't already scooped this up at MFS, you can lift it from Soundological HERE or HERE.

Moe Koffman - Moe's Curried Soul

MOE KOFFMAN
Moe's Curried Soul
1969
256+ VBR LAME mp3
Vinyl rip & scans from Kama Sutra KSBS 2018

As mentioned yesterday, the title track is used as the opening and closing themes respectively for the CBC radio show As It Happens.


Moe Koffman - Flute, Dual Saxes (Alto & Tenor)
Doug Riley - Keys
Lenny Breau - Guitar
Dave Young - Double-bass
Larnell Lewis - Drums


1 Curried Soul
2 You Are My Sunshine
3 Li'l Bitty Pretty One
4 Sunshine Superman
5 Country Song
6 Anteater's Dance
7 High Heel Sneakers
8 Cantelope Island


This LP was really the start of his move out of straight-ahead jazz and into the fusion direction he generally would follow until the late 70s, pictured below. I've provided what info I could dig up and also any tracks floating around out there. For full discog info, you can go to the Catalogue of Canadian Instrumental Music.

1957 The Shepherd Swings Again!

at What...Cat 8 Your Tongue?


1962 Tales of Koffman

at mohaoffbeat

1967 Moe Koffman Goes Electric

at Soundological

1968 Turned On

Hear "James Brown's Bag" on a Funky 16 Corners mix at Flea Market Funk.

1969 Moe's Curried Soul

at Soundological

1971 Moe Koffman Plays Bach

1972 The Four Seasons

at Soundological

1973 Master Sessions

at Soundological

1972 Sorcerer's Dance

A reissue of Moe's Curried Soul on Hopi Records

1974 Solar Explorations

at Soundological

1975 Live at George's

at The Basement Rug

1976 Jungle Man

Cover illustration by heebie-jeebies genius Gahan Wilson.
at Soundological

1977 Museum Pieces

at Soundological

1978 Things Are Looking Up

at Soundological

1979 Back to Bach

at Soundological

1983 Best Of

at Soundological

1986 One Moe Time

at mohaoffbeat

1988 Oop-Pop-A-Da

here (originally posted at Call It Anything)

Doug Riley was the mastermind behind Dr. Music, notable for having a couple members assist with the sessions for Funkadelic's Standing On The Verge Of Getting It On while Clinton, Worrell and Simon were living in Toronto. More on Riley and Dr. Music in weeks to come.

Lenny Breau is one of the greatest jazz guitarists who ever lived. If you don't think so, watch the first excerpt from the documentary The Genius of Lenny Breau below and let George Benson tell you so himself. His life came to an end tragically and his murder at the age of 43 remains unsolved.

The Genius of Lenny Breau

Dave Young has played on-stage and in numerous sessions with dozens of jazz giants, including Kenny Burrell, Nat Adderly, Cedar Walton, James Moody, Gary Burton. He remains active and you can learn more about him and his current projects at his site.

Larnell Lewis is still kickin' it behind the kit in the Canadian jazz scene. However, he's not to be confused with the 24 year-old drum prodigy Larnell "Stixx" Lewis, who also happens to be from Canada.

There's actually a huge amount of MK material out there on eBay and at sites like GEMM, Music Stack, etc. but you can nick this OOP soulflutejazzadelic treat from Soundological HERE or HERE.