THE FOURTH WAY

The Fourth Way biography
New Zealand born pianist Mike Knock played in John Handy?s band where he met the violinist Michael White with whom he created in 1967 together with Ron Mc Lure on bass and Eddie Marshall on drums the band The Fourth Way. The band played a form of proto jazz rock, mixing standard jazz with binary rhythms and an original instrumentation among them the Fender Rhodes. The first Fourth Way record was released in 1969, but the band had already recorded a live record in 1968, Sun & Moon Have Come Together, which was only released in 1969.On Werewolf (1970) another live record from 1969 the band switched to electrified instruments and played a heavier early jazz rock. Fourth Way worked primarily in the San Francisco Bay Area through the early 1970s. Mike Knock recorded also under the name The Mike Knock Underground, Between Or Beyond (1970) for the German MPS label with two of the former Fourth Way members.

===Martin Horst===