LOOKING THRU

I'll go along with BJ on this too. PASSPORT is not completely prog, but then again neither was RETURN TO FOREVER, WEATHER REPORT or MAHAVISHNU ORCHESTRA for that matter. From here, PASSPORT went on to be known as fusion's best kept secret. Not very well known among the casual fusion listener in the 70's, but to die-hards, they were very well admired. It was this release, their 4th album, that got their audience expanded. The 1st 3 albums weren't even released in the States and to this day they're still not available here. Bringing in stellar keyboardist Kristian Schultze (a combo of Keith Emerson, Rick Wakeman and Chick Corea) completed the "classic lineup" and gave them a more expansive sound. Curt's use of electronic drums on this album even pre-dates Carl Palmer's "synthesized drums" on Brain Salad Surgery. Klaus's aural sounding soprano sax on the title track was way ahead of Kenny G (and a lot less boring, too!). And Wolfgang's deep heavy basslines gave them a good bottom in their sound. If you really want to check out PASSPORT, this is the album to do it. Enough said, 4.5 stars.