Jade Warrior Appreciation Thread

My favorite is still Waves. One of the best titles by any artist to immerse oneself in, so it’s appropriately titled.

Those who prefer their Island period might also like Blue Star by Gurumander & Friends. It’s an album that I’ve praised on this forum before, and no, I had nothing to do with its making, I just like it. It’s readily available on Amazon.

HackettFan wrote: TODDLER wrote: I thought Tony Duhig's guitar playing was a melodic, kind of laidback form of improvisation. Barazinbar! TODDLER wrote: On electric guitar he often played with a clean Jazz tone. He experimented with open tunings on acoustic which created an Asian music sound and luring vibe. He added a mystical style and raised the spirits in the music of Jade Warrior..Lol! Actually any musician that study's Asian music and even it's culture, will naturally create such a sound. Clearly it's the originality that Tony Duhig brought to the sound of their music. Horizens is a work of art! The entire album and especially "Long Wait At Mount Li." is a true work of art...and don't forget his very innovative yet bizzare guitar work on Steve Jolliffe's Journey's Out Of The Body. Yeah, I usually play straight up electric, but I've been seeing what I can do with fingerpicking of late. I decided to try leaving some open strings in usual places, and found it remarkable how reminiscent it was of Tony Duhig. I didn't use his alternate tuning, though. I always thought Obedience, BTW, was a masterful use of layered droning distortion - who needs a mellotron when you can do that?

dr wu23 wrote: Davesax1965 wrote: I used to work with someone who'd been in Jade Warrior. Not naming any names. ;-)   Well...why bring it up if you aren't naming names..?    BTW...what do you think of their music ,both old and new?

TODDLER wrote: HackettFan wrote: TODDLER wrote: I thought Tony Duhig's guitar playing was a melodic, kind of laidback form of improvisation. Barazinbar! TODDLER wrote: On electric guitar he often played with a clean Jazz tone. He experimented with open tunings on acoustic which created an Asian music sound and luring vibe. He added a mystical style and raised the spirits in the music of Jade Warrior..Lol! Actually any musician that study's Asian music and even it's culture, will naturally create such a sound. Clearly it's the originality that Tony Duhig brought to the sound of their music. Horizens is a work of art! The entire album and especially "Long Wait At Mount Li." is a true work of art...and don't forget his very innovative yet bizzare guitar work on Steve Jolliffe's Journey's Out Of The Body. Yeah, I usually play straight up electric, but I've been seeing what I can do with fingerpicking of late. I decided to try leaving some open strings in usual places, and found it remarkable how reminiscent it was of Tony Duhig. I didn't use his alternate tuning, though. I always thought Obedience, BTW, was a masterful use of layered droning distortion - who needs a mellotron when you can do that? That's an interesting observation....your statement about the mellotron. I never thought of it in that way.

Jade Warrior did what they did with little more than a token contribution from keyboards, unlike a large body of Prog bands that we all know. Sax and flute helped for sure, but I think the tonal variations Tony Duhig got from distortion provided a lot of variation in the timbre. They had a broad palette that was surprisingly comparable to the contemporary synth/mellotron bands, or so I think.

What do you all make of those strangely out-of-place straight rock songs on their early albums?  I'm thinking of "The Demon Trucker" and "We Have Reason to Believe" in particular, and "Joanne" to a lesser extent.   Those tracks typically get bashed in reviews, and though they're by no means bad songs, I think they must have been included as either a deliberate attempt at a radio-ready tune or perhaps as a tongue-in-cheek joke.  What do you think?

Also, anyone but me see a lot of similarities between "Petunia" and King Crimson's "Ladies of the Road"?  They even both lead off side two of their respective albums.

HolyMoly wrote: What do you all make of those strangely out-of-place straight rock songs on their early albums?  I'm thinking of "The Demon Trucker" and "We Have Reason to Believe" in particular, and "Joanne" to a lesser extent.   Those tracks typically get bashed in reviews, and though they're by no means bad songs, I think they must have been included as either a deliberate attempt at a radio-ready tune or perhaps as a tongue-in-cheek joke.  What do you think? Also, anyone but me see a lot of similarities between "Petunia" and King Crimson's "Ladies of the Road"?  They even both lead off side two of their respective albums.

TODDLER wrote: If you listen to some of the improvisation from the Fillmore East concert off King Crimson's Epitaph, you can hear the influence they had over Jade Warrior.

I'll have to revisit that.  Interesting.

But yeah, my first impression of JW upon buying their debut album was a strong sense of both Tull and Crimson, but on the other hand their lack of a full drum and use of hand percussion kit really set them apart.

TODDLER wrote: HolyMoly wrote: What do you all make of those strangely out-of-place straight rock songs on their early albums?  I'm thinking of "The Demon Trucker" and "We Have Reason to Believe" in particular, and "Joanne" to a lesser extent.   Those tracks typically get bashed in reviews, and though they're by no means bad songs, I think they must have been included as either a deliberate attempt at a radio-ready tune or perhaps as a tongue-in-cheek joke.  What do you think?Also, anyone but me see a lot of similarities between "Petunia" and King Crimson's "Ladies of the Road"?  They even both lead off side two of their respective albums. Definitely deliberate because they were signed to Vertigo. Vertigo made the same contrived business demands of Jade Warrior just like they did with everyone else. Afro-Rock was a bit mainstream in the early 70's. Although I have a bad memory as to if it was actually labeled Afro-Rock?  "Well Honest Jerry", "Let's put Jade Warrior on a tour with those bands". Definitely a common practice in marketing Rock bands during the 70's.

I agree definitely deliberate and influenced by the label. I always detected a bit of Zappa. It really comes out with Discotechnique on Fifth Element, 24 Hour Movie too. I seem to remember reading that they had opened for Zappa on their US tour, but I don't know where I got that from.

Finally got around to checking out this group based on what people were saying in other threads, as well as the intriguing cover art posted in the "now playing thread". There's an obvious influence from the first Pink Floyd LP, but the entire songwriting sensibility is much more introverted and progressive... perhaps a direction PF could have taken if Syd Barrett's mental health issues had not forced him to leave? The influences from non-European folk music traditions with a lot of different instruments and excursions into longer trippy structures also remind me of early Amon Düül II. Not sure if there's an actual influence or whether it's just a result of being in sorta the same "idea space" at the same time.

I also swear I've came across their name and their music somewhere else, being convinced they've done the background music for several documentary films I watched a long time ago yet their discography on PA doesn't list any film scores nor confirm any of this. Maybe I'm confusing Jade Warrior with some other group that sounded similar and/or had a similar name.

EDIT: According to both Wikipedia and what I presume to be an official Facebook page, they did do the music for a 1979 film titled A Game for Vultures. The music I recognize from elsewhere I do specifically remember hearing in a documentary, rather than a work of fiction though.


Edited by Toaster Mantis - October 07 2014 at 13:47

Just wanted to say that Colin Henson is a fine guitarist. His improvisation on Distant Echoes is truly outstanding..and especially his soloing on "Evocation", "Night Of The Shamen", and "Calling The Wind". He has some influence of an Alan Holdsworth style of playing , but shines on his own with individuality. I love his phrasing. He's also very interesting on Breathing The Storm where he is more laidback, yet adds the perfect chemistry for the composition.