ONCE UPON A TIME

The sound of music

"Once upon a time" is an early EP from IQ related band Jadis, with only three tracks but a running time of around 20 minutes.

The opening track, "Follow me to Salzburg" was actually written by the band some years before it was recorded in 1993. As a result, only Gary Chandler was involved in both the composition and the performance, the line up having changed significantly in the intervening years. The title, which has nothing to do with the actual song, relates to the film "The sound of music".

The song itself is a wonderful piece of mellow neo-prog, with melodic guitar work and lush keyboards. It segues seamlessly into "All in one day", another song which had been around for some years before it made it onto CD. The track has various changes of pace, and some fine Hackett like lead guitar. While this soft neo-prog may be somewhat derivative and predictable, here the strong performance and melodies make for a wonderfully appealing work.

The final track is predominantly instrumental, with just a brief vocal section during its 7+ minutes. The band seem proud of the numerous time changes they squeezed into the piece, but in reality it is actually quite repetitive.

For me, Jadis have had a tendency towards short-comings in the melody department, so it is pleasing to report that here we have a strong set of fine songs.

This EP has since been deleted and incorporated in remastered format on the 2001 Jadis release "Medium rare".

This EP is fully in-line with "More than Meets his Eye". The first Jadis album.

Brilliant opening number. "Follow Me to Salzburg" is one of my fave from the band. A superb and catchy melody, fabulous guitar solo and gorgeous keys. Drumming is seriously effective. Anything else ? This is a fantastic and beautiful song. A great combination between neo and symphonic prog.

It sounds as a concept EP since the listener goes nicely from one track to the other without any blanks (at least during the first two songs). "All in One Day" starts with an instrumental intro (a definite strenght of this band - I mean the instrumental parts). This is somptuous. The whole song being rather rhythmy and again very melodic. Expressive drumming as well. I really like this song. Some passion perspires out of it. The middle part being very much "Genesis" oriented (while they were four). Vocal parts are somewhat poppy but I really can not complain.

The last song of this excellent EP, "View from Above" also features a lenghty instrumental opening part and this is pretty much fine. Sublime keys and guitar, upbeat rhythm, lots of theme changes. It is an elaborate track which provides so much emotion mainly thanks to the superb guitar work.

IMHHO, this EP is a wonder of neo-prog genre. It can not be rated as a masterpiece due to its lenght but it is definitely four stars worth.

This will be my last Jadis review after doing the 6 studio albums and the other significant EP. Because there's not too much to say about this short EP (3 songs, just under 20 min. total time) I want to say my last things I have to say about this high quality band.

The thing that keeps coming back in descriptions of this band is their similarity to IQ. I know where that's coming from, it's not hard to find out. Two members (Jowitt, Orford) are from the famous neoprogband so it seems logical to state that Jadis is a sort of IQ. I can tell you: it's big nonsense (wanted to use another word but we don't do that on progarchives). I can hardly find any similarity with IQ. Important for the sound of a band are the vocals. And it's really a joke to even compare Gary Chandler with Peter Nicholls: 100% difference. So that's already 50% of the general sound of the 2 bands. The other important aspect in this case is the guitar. I don't want to insult Mike Holmes, he's a good guitarist but he is no Gary Chandler. Besides the fact that Gary is even far better (but that's a matter of taste also of course) they play the guitar completely differently. And there's a third big difference: IQ produces the occasional epic (at least one on each album) but that's the Achilles heel of Jadis. They never do so that results in a different kind of neo prog. IQ tending towards symphonic prog and Jadis almost to AOR or pop. And that is also an important statement for Jadis. It's hardly prog and this might explain the little attention they get on progarchives. There are only a few reviews for each album and that is strange for such a high quality band but I think the problem is that many proggers don't accept this music as prog. And as I also said in one of my other reviews for Jadis: Gary Chandler himself is actually contemplating to leave the progressive corner of music (Genesis, Yes, Saga and Rush come to mind) to become (even) more accessible to a wider range of public interest. He said this in an interview after his latest studio album so I'm curious what that will result in.

Now some words about this EP. It starts with the sweet Follow me to Salzburg. Funny thing occurred to me here: I often say I'm not interested in lyrics, now here's an interesting exapmle why that is. In this song Gary sings: for the first time in my life I'm looking down on you which is followed by I'm really drifting away now. What does this mean ? My first impulse says: he has looked up to someone his entire life until now when the tables are turned apparently. But what does the next sentence mean in that case ? The alternative interpretation could be: he is in an airplane and is literally looking down on someone because that would explain the next sentence: I'm really drifting away now (airplane that flies on). My point is: that's often the trouble with lyrics, if you can even understand and translate it you sometimes still don't know what it means. So why bother ? I don't have time or energy for this. I feel more like enjoying the instrumental music and judge that ! Next song (All in one day) is a little heavier before the slower View from above closes it down. It's stating the obvious almost to say that they are all three very good songs because I never ever have been able to catch this band on producing a poor song. And I have heard about 50 till 60 songs so far and I believe this is the only band I know who has produced this number of songs and achieved this unique fact.

So all together hats off for this fantastic band but because this EP is not really their very best I give it 3 stars but in their overall career it's at least 4 !

High IQ?

Though released in 1993, one year after the band's debut album, this three track EP features songs that are (if I'm correctly informed) older than those that made it onto More Then Meets The Eye. Even if they didn't release anything officially until 1992, Jadis had been around in one form or other since the mid 80's. Apparently they reached moderate fame while touring in support of bands like Marillion and IQ. Marillion's Steve Rothery produced some of their early demos from which some of these songs originated and two members of Jadis were also members of IQ; namely, Martin Orford on keyboards and Jon Jowitt on bass. The rest of the band are Gary Chandler on guitars, and Stephen Christey on drums.

Though sharing members with IQ and being associated with Marillion, the music of Jadis is very different from that of those bands. Jadis focus on a guitar-based and rather instrumental sound. There are indeed vocals on these songs, but they are rather anonymous and it often feels as if you are listening to an instrumental album as the focus lies mostly on the guitars with the rest of the band being relegated to the background much of the time. The guitar playing of Chandler is similar to that of Steve Hackett, but very far from being as distinctive and unique as the Genesis guitarist. The music of Jadis is very pleasant and wholly enjoyable and they are indeed a very competent band. However, the sound is rather polite, never aggressive and not very complex and overall it comes across as anonymous and not special. So, though good, I fail to gather up much enthusiasm over this music.

The three songs featured here are every bit as good if not better as the best songs from More Than Meets The Eye and this EP is as well recorded and produced as that album. Maybe it is too perfect to be interesting? The first two tracks Follow Me To Salzburg and All In One Day flow into each other, while the third track, View From Above, stands on its own. The latter is the same type of song as IQ's It All Stops Here which means more complex and up tempo.

Once Upon A Time is a recommended companion to More Than Meets The Eye, but hardly essential listening unless you want everything IQ related.