BEAR'S BANQUET

Opossum was a jazz rock outfit from Germany which would eventually evolve into the band Morpheus after some personnel changes. Opossum's sole recording, Bear's Banquet, is a posthumous release, compliments of the excellent German reissue label, Garden of Delights. The recording was done at the band's rehearsal studio in 1974, and is surprisingly pretty good, considering. The band would split in 1975, with guitarist Gerold Adler, saxophonist Heinrich Holtgreve , drummer Alfred Franke, and multi-instrumentalist Peter Blomeke going on to form Morpheus.

Bear's Banquet is what I would describe as a Kraut-jazz-rock affair, or "Stoner Jazz" if you like. The music is well played, but also loose and experimental at points. The opener, "The Sun and Moon Have Come Together" is the lone cover on the album, originally done by the American jazzrock group The Fourth Way. Very loose, somewhat jammy, and smokey music oozes from the speakers from the very beginning. As mentioned before, there is an early Krautrock vibe going on throughout the album, with the possible exception of "Opossum Novum," which would not sound out of place on Stan Getz's & Charlie Byrd's Jazz Samba album. Adler lays down some nice guitar work, with the remaining band members all making their marks at various points in the album.

Overall, an excellent example of German, 70's jazzrock that fortunately found the light of day, although not until 29 years after it was recorded! Recommended for those who like some psychedelia with their jazzrock. A solid 4 stars for this obscure German relic.