3 May : Michael Gibbs

This is a hard one to comment on. Let’s deal with the easy bit: I hadn’t heard of Michael Gibbs or this album until I saw it selected as Jazz Album Of The Month in Melody Maker, 2 May 1970. The players caught my attention (Ray Russell, Chris Spedding, John Surman, Henry Lowther, Jack Bruce, and others) and it was a Deram release, which is a good sign, so I had a listen on YouTube.

I think I was two tracks in when I went looking for a copy on cd, saw the crazy prices on Amazon, and found a copy under a tenner on Discogs. I’m listening to it as I write.

The difficult aspect of it is that it’s hard to point to anything else it sounds like as a signpost to the whole. Gibbs scored the rhythm sections for jazz orchestra, set the themes, then trusted the soloists to go somewhere special, and they did. Mostly it sounds like jazz, sometimes it sounds like so-called fusion. Some echoes, some shadows had me scratching my head wondering where I’d heard it before until it clicked that it’s basic riff that kicks in after four minutes or so is a precursor to Soft Machine’s Hazard Profile (on Bundles, 1975) and reminiscent of Zappa’s Willie The Pimp.

The rest of the LP, needless to say, sounds nothing like Soft Machine or Frank Zappa.

Eclectic, singular, and it fits nicely with where my tastes are. No wonder I bought it. Your mileage may vary, of course, but it’s albums like this that make this project worthwhile for me, as, too, was learning that Gibbs was musical director for The Goodies 🙂

The album is not on Spotify, but it is all on YouTube