Any Nucleus fans? - Progressive Rock Music Forum

Just had to check the release date of Elastic Rock: said on the web to 1970, a year which doesn't make it the first British fusion record.

The excellent 3 hour documentary on BBC TV 2-3 years ago Jazz Britannia, examined jazz development in the UK from the end of World War 2. The second 1 hour show was largely devoted to jazz fusion. The script writers claimed jazz rock dated back to 1963 with the likes of Graham Bond and Georgie Fame - who because the London jazz clubs won't allow them to use the permanent acoustic instruments of the resident artists, instead had to bring in their own electric instruments. They were then encouraged to add blues and R'n'B to their sounds because of the fans demands.

However, if the likes of Ian Carr, John Surman, Ken Collyer, Gordon Beck and Mike Westbrook's musics are examined from the mid 60's, then you'll find these young jazz musicians taking and then breaking away from American jazz prevalent at the time, and producing the first distinct British jazz. Sometimes free jazz, sometime atonal but definitely new. John McLaughlin was slightly different, being both a jazz and blues fan, he was also a relatively in-demand studio session player and so playing a lot of pop and early rock. Gordon Beck's Experiments with Pops dates from 1968/9 (which was a good period to hear separation between straighter jazz and jazz fusion in the UK), with a certain "Johnny" McLaughlin on guitar - now has had two CD issues.

John Surman (better known then for some free sax playing with Mike Westbrook and subsequently Mike Gibb's orchestras at the time) recorded in 1969 the excellent Way Back When (issued by Cuneiform on CD less than 3 year ago).

And of course there is that album sounding right at a point of musical change, McLaughlin's Extrapolation.

Don't forget Jack Bruce recorded Things We Like at this time too (again with McLaughlin and other British jazz notables), although this hung around for sometime in the can before being release (however, not as long as the Surman album!).

You have musicans coming from the other direction - e.g. John Mayall broadening out the Bluesbreakers for Bare Wires.

Personally I feel Soft Machine Volume 2 sits on another cusp - somewhere between psychedelic/prog and avant jazz fusion.

No doubt others will suggest Colesseum - and if they do might as well pushed back to Timebox, who claimed they played' jazz rock' but were more 'rock jazz' - i.e. predominately rock with some jazzy solos.

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Over the last 3 or 4 years several pre-Nucleus recordings involving Ian Carr have been released also showing some sharp difference between Nucleus and his earlier playing.

Mike Westbrook has always had a great reputation but again there are considerable differences between the 1968/9 prize-winning Marching Songs double set and his 1972 or 3 Solid Gold Cadillac. One good jazz rock historian, Stuart Nicholson, has been in print in the last 3 years to write that Westbrook's early 70's recordings are the best UK jazz rock.

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ExittheLemming wrote:

Whoops....I stand corrected. I shall enter a plea of 'guilty as sin' your honor.

(I guess with the title "Jazz Rock Specialist" and taking this music pretty seriously for 40 years, I feel somewhat compelled to fill in the gaps when necessary)

As ever I recommended as a reasonable read on the subject (although slightly lacking on mainland European jazz fusion), Stuart Nicholson's Jazz Rock A History - which has a pretty good discography at its rear compiled by Jazzwise magazine editor Jon Newey

Edited by Dick Heath - June 28 2008 at 13:55

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