AUTUMN GRASS

This wholly instrumental album is very much a game of two halves. Side one contains some rather ambling and unfocussed jazz-rock improvisations mainly based on classical pieces. Track one is Byrd's Pavan which begins with a beautiful performance of Byrd's familiar pavan before launching into a jazzy jam session. Although it does contain some lovely moments. mostly it smacks too much of self indulgent noodling, something which can be said of the whole side, with the exception of track two a very straight forward rendition of a Vivaldi slow moment. The third and final track on this side, "Overdraft" is even more noodly. So far there is nothing that would interest the average Prog fan, being as this is pretty standard jazz rock fare. Side two is rather different. Here we have the title track, a 26 minute piece. If side one led you to believe this would be more long winded noodling, you'd be wrong. Despite its length this is a tightly argued piece with elements of avant garde classical writing (melancholy strings are featured memorably through out), jazz, medievalism, an unusually interesting drum solo, in fact almost everything that early 70s progressivism was about, apart from bluesy rock that is. Prog fans should try to hear this track, even if the album as a whole remains somewhat dated.