Jasper van’t Hof’s Pork Pie feat. Charlie Mariano - Transitory

One of the best parts of scouring the MPS catalog is realizing just how many all-star line ups are seemingly obscured by the bandname or leader. The unfortunately named Pork Pie, cribbed from the famous jazz standard, does not say a lot, but bandmembers Charlie Mariano and Philip Catherine definitely do. Unsurprisingly from Van’t Hof’s perspective this is something of a keyboard jam album and if you’re a fan of early 70s distorted and treated Rhodes sounds, this will inevitably be a treat, as Van’t Hof not only grooves mightily with the thing but spits out solos that would make Herbie Hancock proud.

Overall it does seem a group work, particularly when you look at the credits and see most of the band members, including drummer Aldo Romano and bassist J. F. Jenny-Clarke, get some writing in. But make no mistake that van’t Hof is the leader here and he’s nearly omnipresent even when leaving the Rhodes behind for some piano, organ and celesta. However these moments tend to be linked to the more composed and thematic material, where the e-piano comes in when the band’s fully charged and riffing on a theme to let Mariano, Catherine or, eventually, Van’t Hof himself let loose.

It’s these latter moments that take up the lion’s share of the album and it adds up to another MPS entry where standard jazz, fusion and free jazz kind of collide. Despite the e-piano tying this directly to the jazz rock of the early 70s, the solos, even Catherine’s, are more reminiscent of free work, and the addition gives it the spice that so many fusion/funk fusion albums are often missing. Lots of chromatic ramblings show jazz chops even when the rhythm section is plunking down a rock vamp.

All of this is broken up by more introspective moments, such as in the second part of “Transitory” or the first part of Romano and Jenny-Clarke’s ”Bassamba.” While many of these seem like taking an ad break during a TV show, they give the entirely a bit of dynamic range so that the jamming onslaughts don’t all bleed into each other. And this is important when the band’s taking a piece of the Mahavishnu playbook for “Angel Wings,” with the picked, modal electric guitar work and increasing intensity “Meeting of the Spirits” style.

Everything’s wrapped up by Conny Plank’s recording, who fattens up the sound thus compensating for some occasional thin tones from the guitar, keys and sax and the remaster brings this out quite nicely, given that this kind of recording doesn’t always sound terrific unless your vinyl isn’t beat up. The presentation is excellent as always with this series with the original liner notes. And if I haven’t already convinced you that this is well worth picking up, Thom Jurek’s allmusic.com review, quoted in part here and in the booklet, should get you off the fence:

“…one of the greatest fusion recordings ever, and trounces all prog rock by comparison (possible exceptions being the first three Agitation Free and first five Can records.”