I've previously mentioned my prior involvement with the highly progressive jazz fusion station of the 1970's,
KRE in Berkeley, California. More than a just a commercial jazz outlet, KRE simulcast its evocative programming on both the AM and FM bands with a heady mix of modern jazz, third stream and the burgeoning rock/funk/fusion of the period. Added to this was a liberal dose of reggae, salsa, r & b, soul and blues, a package of sounds that today is only possible on non-commercial radio, if even found there. To hear quality jazz in stereo on the FM side was a delight to be sure, but to hear the exact same mix streaming over the AM band 24/7 was nothing short of a marvel!
KRE was a uniquely original station in it's time for both its focus and approach to jazz which naturally made its studios a mecca for the musicians whose music was prominently featured. Aided by its close proximity to the very active Fantasy Record recording studios just a few blocks away, KRE practically became a second home for the purveyors of the art, looking for camaraderie and a bit of promotion, of course. Impromptu visits from musicians in town for a record date, passing through on the road to L.A. or Japan, or merely dropping by for the welcoming atmosphere were frequent occurrences. The stations clout allowed the air staff to met, hangout and spin records with many wonderful players throughout its lifetime. With the departure of a key member of our team, I took over the production chores for a program called
'The Sound Of The Bay' which featured in-depth interviews with musicians of the San Francisco Bay Area exclusively. At the time, the list was plentiful ---
Joe Henderson, Herbie Hancock, Denny Zeitlin, Carlos Santana, George Duke, Tony Williams and
Cal Tjader --- to name a few of the more highly visible. One other musician who called 'The Bay' their home at the time was English expatriate,
Brian Auger who was a solid supporter of KRE and often sang its praises. Of course KRE was also one of the few commercial radio stations where his music could be actually heard outside of a few adventurous rock stations, but
Brian genuinely loved what we did and was always a welcomed guest, and he is also the subject of this week's music mix here at
Birds With Broken Wings.
Brian, one of the founding fathers of jazz fusion, began his professional career in earnest as a session player for
The Yardbirds, supplying the instantly recognizable harpsichord strains on the beginning of their hit single, 'For Your Love.' From there,
Auger was recruited by
Long John Baldry for an ad hoc revue christened,
Steampacket, whose life was brief but illustrious with guitarist
Vic Briggs, drummer
Mickey Waller and additional vocalists
Rod Stewart and
Julie Driscoll. With its demise,
Auger kept
Driscoll in tow and set out to form the first true jazz/rock band in history,
'Brian Auger & The Trinity,' playing a "combination of
Jimmy Smith, blues, Motown and
Blakey's Messengers."
Julie Driscoll's vocal depth belied her youth and certainly lent an attractive 'face' to the band which headlined the 1968 Montreux Jazz Festival. Several strong and endearing albums followed, but due to shoddy management,
The Trinity were forced to call it a day after returning from a tour of the States to find themselves broke and in debt. In an effort then to recoup his loses and further expand his concept of mixing rock, funk and soul with elements of jazz,
Auger formed his most triumphant endeavor, the cutting edge,
Oblivion Express. Set up to reflect the 'school of music' approach employed by the likes of
Betty Carter and
Art Blakey,
Oblivion Express became a revolving door of talented musicians. Several editions came and went within its first years as
Brian struggled to find the sound he envisioned, but he finally hit his stride with the release of the aptly titled, 'Closer To It' in 1973 with a band consisting of
Jack Mills, Barry Dean, Godfrey MacLean and
Lennox Laington. Not quite rock, not quite jazz, not quite funk,
Oblivion Express was truly a 'cross-pollination,' a cohesive amalgamation of all three neatly wrapped into a sound that was rich with rhythm and harmonics, and held together by a solid underpinning of groove.
Auger's keyboard virtuosity and burning Hammond organ merely put the icing on the cake, as the band revolved around a diplomatic approach --- a collective unit in which no one person was the star. Not as progressive as
McLaughlin's 'Mahavishnu,' nor mathematical as
Corea's 'Return To Forever,' and certainly not as bombastic as
'Tony Williams' Lifetime,' Brian Auger's Oblivion Express managed to actually swing in the jazz tradition while simultaneously laying down some very serious and slippery grooves! With the occasional vocal added to the mix, the band found a greater acceptance among mixed audiences than their contemporaries, allowing them to appeal equally to rockers, funksters and jazzheads without losing their integrity. Between 1973 and 1977, the roster of musicians who had passed through the band at one point or another was staggering ---
Robbie Macintosh of
AWB,
Clive Chapman of
The Jeff Beck Group,
Steve Ferrone of
Clapton, Chaka Kahn and others. Add to this,
Alex Ligertwood of
The Santana Band,
Paul Jackson and
Mike Clark of
The Headhunters, and finally,
Lenny White fresh from
Return To Forever. These names alone should give one a clue as to the sound, direction and power of
Oblivion Express.
When the
Express pulled into the station for the last time,
Auger redirected his attention to family life and higher learning, studying viola at the College of Marin and casually assembling the core of his next musical endeavor,
Search Party, a short-lived band who released only one recording in their lifetime entitled 'Planet Earth Calling.' It was around this time that I extended an invitation to
Brian to appear as my guest on 'TSOTB' program. With the madness of the road behind him, he was remarkably more relaxed and gregarious than on previous visits, although always a warm, entertaining, gracious and very spiritual man. Into the mix below I've incorporated excerpts of that and previous conversations
* we've had to provide insight into his personality as well as his thoughts regarding his own transformation, progression and contributions to the canon.
Today,
Auger works with a revamped version of
Oblivion Express that features his own extremely talented children who easily hold there own with their father's skill. The band is currently on tour and information regarding the current line-up and
Auger's history can be found on his
website. Surprisingly, there is also a fair amount of archival video available on
YouTube --- although I'm constantly amazed at the scope of what can be found there --- including one particularly bizarre clip from
a Monkees television special in which the band is dressed like something out of
Harry Potter's 'Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry!'
The
Auger mix begins chronologically with
The Trinity in a
Wes Montgomery-like groove called 'Isola Natale,' followed by 'Tramp,' a soul number popularized by
Otis Redding and
Carla Thomas. A demonstration of their quest to fuse jazz and rock is provided in 'Tropic of Capricorn,' and 'Indian Rope Man' shows their knack for putting a jazz spin on an unlikely song written by singer,
Richie Havens. Several examples of
Oblivion Express follow in which you can hear the ultimate blending of
Auger's many influences into the cohesive whole that he originally envisioned. 'It Burns Me Up' is the sound of a new generation carrying the torch and lastly, a trilogy of three more songs from
The Trinity and
Oblivion Express, the former (along with 'Tramp' and 'Indian Rope Man') showcasing the
extraordinary vocal talents of
Julie Driscoll.
1) Isola Natale/Brian Auger & The Trinity
2) Tramp/Brian Auger & The Trinity with Julie Driscoll
3) Tropic Of Capricorn/Brian Auger & The Trinity
4) Conversation
5) Indian Rope Man/Brian Auger & The Trinity with Julie Driscoll
6) Happiness Is Just Around The Bend/Brian Auger's Oblivion Express
7) Whenever You're Ready/Brian Auger's Oblivion Express
8) Brain Damage/Brian Auger's Oblivion Express
9) Thoughts From Afar/Brian Auger's Oblivion Express
10) Conversation
11) Sea Of Tranquility/Search Party
12) It Burns Me Up/Oblivion Express
13) Conversation
14) Ellis Island/Brian Auger & The Trinity
15) Beginning Again/Brian Auger's Oblivion Express
16) I've Got Life/Brian Auger & The Trinity with Julie Driscoll
To download, click
here and enjoy!
*The interview segments included are just one of many that I had the foresight to save from my tenure at KRE. I would like to present others in the future but admittedly, transferring the original reel-to-reel tapes into a digital format without a proper studio is a real pain in the ass. The Brian Auger conversation was already at hand because when speaking with him last year, he was reminded of my archive and asked if I could provide him with a copy for his own historical annals. I complied and therefore had a digital copy prepared, therefore its inclusion here was a cinch. As for featuring more down the road, it remains a question mark. If you are genuinely interested in hearing others, please let me know so that I can evaluate whether the interest is worth the effort involved to convert them. Thanks.
While I take some time to clear my head from the mid-winter confinement of spending entirely too much time indoors, I offer an extremely listenable, altogether pleasant, and entirely out-of-print recording from Alan Price. The talented Price is perhaps best known for his role as onetime pianist for The Animals and composer of the wonderful soundtrack to Lindsay Anderson's, 'O Lucky Man!' His extremely uneven output over the years has served only to keep his name out of the spotlight, but 'Between Today and Yesterday' remains a high point in his overlooked career. The recording is a heartfelt autobiographical reflection on his upbringing in an impoverished North England shipbuilding community, post-Depression, and an assessment of his then current world view as it relates to his roots. In a slightly conceptual context, Price approaches the matter with the greatest of heart and soul, insight and tenderness, with Side One designated as 'Yesterday,' and Side Two as 'Today.' Given the setting, it's a thoroughly British recording, filled with the hallmarks of the English working class; strains of jaunty music hall numbers, pints of Bitter, bangers and mash, unfiltered cigarettes, and tea with biscuits. The recording was unavailable for some time, and although it was briefly re-released on CD, that too has sadly gone out-of-print as well. 
