RAY RUSSELL – Secret Asylum (LP-1973)

Label: Black Lion Records – 2460-207

Format: Vinyl, LP, Album / Country: UK / Released: 1973

Style: Contemporary, Free Jazz, Free Improvisation

Recorded in Studios Black Lion Records, 1973, London, Alan Bates Productions

Matrix / Runout (SIDE ONE): 2660207 A1

Matrix / Runout (SIDE TWO): 2660207 B2

Sound Advice By – Miki Dandy

Producer By – Bob Auger, Ray Russell

Recorded By – Bob Auger

Technician [Master Tape Transfer] – Ray Russell

A1 - Stained Angel Morning .................................................................... 1:11

A2 - Spinetree ......................................................................................... 6:08

A3 - Sweet Cauldron ............................................................................... 7:19

A4/A5 - All Through Over You - Nearer .................................................. 6:24

B1 - These That I Am .............................................................................. 7:08

B2 - To See Through The Sky ................................................................ 9:27

B3/B4 - There The Dance Is - Children Of The Hollow Dawn ................ 3:14

Performers:

Ray Russell – acoustic guitar, piano, electric guitar

Gary Windo – flute, saxophone, tenor saxophone

Harry Beckett – trumpet, flugelhorn

Daryl Runswick – bass

Alan Rushton – drums, percussion

Great work from the key years of British guitarist Ray Russell, the style here is quite free at times – Russell's guitar working in a quintet with Harry Beckett on trumpet and flugelhorn, Gary Windo on tenor and flute, Daryl Runswick on bass, and Alan Rushton on drums. Guitarist / composer Ray Russell was a dominant figure on the British Jazz scene in the late 1960s / early 1970s, making numerous seminal recordings as sideman and leader in a wide variety of styles ranging from Jazz-Rock Fusion, modern Jazz and even avant-garde Free Jazz.

Ray Russell is a composer whose wild explorations and sonic extensions of the electrified guitar set him aside from the famed British guitar heroes of the late '60s and '70s. Ray's rhythm and blues roots with The John Barry Seven, Georgie Fame, and the Graham Bond Organisation were set aside by the urgent call of the free jazz movement, and a succession of classic recordings (Turn Circle, Dragon Hill, Rites & Rituals, Live at the ICA, The Running Man) gave rise to his most challenging and ultimately rewarding suite of spectral sounds, the magnificent "Secret Asylum". All stretching out with energy that's similar to some of the freest moments in the Paris scene a few years before, inflected with some sharper, sometimes louder, edges from Russell's guitar – which is quite dark and fuzzy at points. Titles include "Stained Angel Morning", "There The Dance Is", "These That I Am", "All Through Over You", "Spinetree", and "Sweet Cauldron". As always, percussionist Alan Rushton batters beyond belief alongside the darting double bass of Daryl Runswick, with Harry Beckett playing inimitable figurines from his flugelhorn. The quintet is finalized by tenor titan Gary Windo who gives the last word in whirlwind intensity. Throughout the journey, "Secret Asylum" presents sonic caresses and searing assaults from all its featured participants, and its success has yet to be equalled...

"Secret Asylum" album shows him at the extreme edge of his work in the field of Free Jazz and is a wonderful example of the genre, similar to the work done earlier by John McLaughlin with John Surman on “Where Fortune Smiles”. Accompanied by a splendid group of musicians, Russell presents a series of his compositions, which vary from contemplative pieces to group improvisation mayhem, all performed splendidly. Beckett is more prominent on the quieter pieces and Windo leads the massive “wall of sound” sections, with his incredible virtuosity...

The album achieved little attention at the time of its release, but now 42 years after it was recorded, it can be really appreciated in full and in the proper historic perspective. Definitely worth checking out!

Enjoy!

If you find it, buy this album!