Prog at its best 💫

 

The Keith Tippett Group - Dedicated To You, But You Weren't Listening

1971 Vertigo 6360 024 (UK)

The second Keith Tippett Group album with the core members of Keith, Elton, Mark, and Nick augmented by a a stellar cast including Gary Boyle, Robert Wyatt, Neville Whitehead, Phil Howard, Bryan Spring, & Roy Babbington. 

The title comes from a Hugh Hopper composition from Soft Machine Volume II and a brief instrumental version of it introduces Nick Evans' "Black Horse" as the closing track on side 2.  The band have really progressed since their first album.  Keith's jagged runs are more pronounced and the three wind players feature more strongly. The cover is one of Roger Dean's earlier ones. The closing track on side one, "Green and Orange Night Park" would be further developed for Centipede.

I picked up this copy during the summer of 1971 second-hand at Cob Records in Porthmadog in N. Wales during the summer break.  Back in the days when you'd browse through the bins, see an interesting cover and look at who names of who played  on it and pick it up sound unheard. I was not disappointed.  I recall playing this, especially side one, a  lot. Sheer bliss, that rapid firing big-band sound, the hard driving riffs, the solos and Keith's inimitable piano. If I wasn't already an Elton Dean fan, his solo on "Green and Orange Night Park" would have made me one! Jazz-Rock at its finest. 

One reason I like the Canterbury scene is the broad spectrum of music which my ears were opened up to. And this is just one small region of that spectrum.

Thanks to Julian Christou 🙏