MCDONALD & GILES

In the wake of Ian McDonald's passing, I couldn't pass up this opportunity to relisten to this great album and contribute further to its and his remembrance. Ian McDonald (1946-2022) joined the pre-King Crimson Giles, Giles and Fripp band in time to feature on one of the most iconic, most beloved albums, not only in Progressive Rock (where, of course, it is timely, timeless and essential), but in all of Rock music: In the Court of the Crimson King (1969). Although we may think of Mel Collins as the reedsman officiel for early King Crimson, Ian McDonald is the one that is heard all around the world on that first KC album, esteemed eternally with Fripp, Lake and Giles. His final Crimson feature was, playing alongside Collins, the iconic Red (1974). This is significant, as Red is matched most closely in love and admiration to that other Crimson McDonald feature for Prog fans everywhere. He would later go on to found the classic Hard Rock band Foreigner and appeared on their first three studio albums; I'm frankly a huge fan of the first two. Of comparable importance, in my mind, to the fun, experimental Psych Pop album that came before him, The Cheerful Insanity of Giles, Giles and Fripp (1968), is this, his sole collaboration with the great Michael Giles (drummer of King Crimson, 1967-70). Enough said? Well, here's some more haha.

"Suite in C" starts off low and slow, sort of post-Psychedelic on its first part, "Turnham Green" (Prog is freshest here in 1970, indeed!). Even so, excellent performances all round. Melodically satisfying and masterfully done. Next to Ian and Michael is Mike's brother, Peter Giles on bass, an exemplary performer, more than capable and melodic. What's most surprising and exciting is that, of all people (and I certainly had no idea until now), Steve Winwood plays piano and solos here! Spectacular. All of this occurs following some flutey beauty and atop great, expectedly jazz drummin' and organ riffin'. All falls away on part 2: "Here I Am". The vocals really should be mentioned: lovely stuff goin' on here. A little Trad Pop? And then wham! Ian saxes all over it, flowing over this sweet, funky jam. The ending will certainly appeal to KC fans. Assuredly.

"Flight of the Ibis" is a pretty little number to follow. If you're into the 'low and slow', well, this is the song for you. And if it isn't...? Well, I can't help you. Really, the only thing I could complain about is the way that it's mixed: it is very loud in the drums department. Lucky for us Michael is something we want to hear, no? "Is She Waiting?" is even more low and slow. Sort of bucolic and soft, this is simply an intimate vocal number with acoustic guitars and piano. The first track that won't necessarily appeal to your average fan of Progressive Rock, as it were.

Then "Tomorrow's People - The Children of Today" starts off big and triumphant. I hear Freakbeat in this, which is... awesome, because Freakbeat has some of my all-time favorite songs and bands: Y'all into that secondary period of The Pretty Things or The Creation or The Action? This should do it for ya. Some really cool percussion following minute 2 here. Once again in funky territory. Then another big blast of awesome with a McDonald flute solo atop some nice organ. I wasn't sure where I was going to mention it, but here is an appropriate time: this album was self-produced and there's another tick off the ol' How Can You Not Respect the Ability of These Particular Musicians More? sheet. A nice Psych-era mini-epic if there ever was one.

"Birdman" closes out the album, a 21-minute epic. It is, in its first part, "The Inventor's Dream (O.U.A.T.)", a very psychedelic song, which starts off with these beautiful group vocals (like on the level of the Beach Boys). It's then pretty avant-garde, and then slips into this Psych Pop lilt. Quirky and lovely, all at once. It is followed by "The Workshop", a very fun number, which is jazzy, dancey and psychedelic, which in turn is followed by the huge, grandiose and then cool "Wishbone Ascension", a surefire highlight here. This sick jam falls away to something which sounds unsure, even melancholic ("Birdman Flies!"), with light cymbal clangs and soft melody on the organ. Very slow build here. Around 3 minutes, flute enters as it continues to drive upwards. Really excellent wordless imagery: I mean, compositionally genius. The epic celebrates the Birdman's success with the celestial "Wings in the Sunset". Short and sweet and to the point. And finally, we have "The Reflection", another soft, building number with grandiosity and triumph in its essence.

What a way to go out. Don't sleep on it, y'all.

Just as Beatles fans imagine what a "Black Album" would be like mixing the early solo works of John, Paul, George and Ringo, King Crimson fans could dream of a sequel to "In The Court of The Crimson King" combining tracks from "In The Wake of Poseidon", Emerson, Lake & Palmer's debut album and "McDonald and Giles". McDonald and Giles is the most obscure of the three dissidents of the legendary 1969 King Crimson line-up, but it is on the same level of Poseidon and it's almost as good as the first ELP album. Tracks like "Suite in C" and "Tomorrow's People - The Children of Today" are great, and "Birdman" is a stunning suite.

The best example of early KC ex-members collaboration. The album is not as adventureous as then contemporary KC albums but it remains folkish and playful. Ambitions are present, too, the ex-members wanted to prove their qualities outside of KC.

The first epic composition is quite varied. Vocals are well executed, sometimes even reminding of simplier Beach Boys harmonies. Certain echoes of Canterbury can be heard now and then - bass, drums and flute being most prominent.

"Flight of the Ibis" is a non-memorable pop-oriented track.

"Is she waiting" is a folk-oriented catchy song with underlying feeling of melancholia.

On the contrary, "Tomorrow's people" start quite rockish but maintaing balance between brass section, organ and layered vocals. Jamming with dominant flute, trombone. The ending part has a soft jazz feeling thanks to flute soloing.

The last track, the suite "Birdman" is the most experimental track, allowing everything to stretch out a bit without chasing time. Pleasant vocal introduction is followed by experimental instrumentation to return to poppy Beatles-like vocals but still a well developed composition. The following instrumental section with slap bass is a bit mundane until the the surprising churning organ and puts more energy in the song. Vocals come up for a few seconds but the instruments are in the foreground until the song returns to the main melody motive which is repeated with different variations - soft vocals with piano, then organ, then the brass section until the suite reaches its peak. A well crafted composition!

All in all, the first and the last suites make this album a welcome addition to any early progressive rock fan but not good enough to reach the excellent point.

McDonald And Giles is one of those albums that definitely falls into "could have been great" category if it wasn't for ego raising it's ugly head. True, Ian McDonald and Mike Gilles are heavyweight musicians that added greatness to King Crimson's first classic album In The Court Of The Crimson King before casting off and thinking they could do as well on their own. ItCotCK, more than any other early prog album, is an absolute sum of it's creative parts. (The duo is joined on this album only by Giles' brother Peter on bass on all tracks and the great Steve Winwood on organ, but only on the album's opening track.) If M&G had understood that and bolstered this self titled collaboration album with a powerfully dynamic singer and a top shelf guitarist, the results would have been staggeringly different. Not a classic perhaps like ItCotCK, but a 4 star album would not have been out of the question. Both McDonald and Giles are merely adequate but extremely colorless vocalists that totally dull out any beauty or power of this music. And a decent guitarist with an emotional solo would have helped the boring epic finale titled "Birdman" tremendously. But the result is what we have. Well written and well played songs that cry out for so much more. 2 stars for such a frustrating listening experience.

McDonald & Giles is a supergroup created after both of these gentlemen's departure from King Crimson. They invited some special guests such as Steve Winwood and Peter Giles. I have mixed feelings about this album. I expected it to be a masterpiece and what came was quite a disappointment. This album is very boring, full of unfinished ideas and many fillers. There are some nice moments like "Suite in C including Turnham Green, Here I Am and others" which has sort of a Beatles-y vibe, reminiscent of "Rocky Rackoon" with great flute improvisation and a pleasant groove, but even this one has some serious flaws to it. Other songs on the Side 1 are similar - they have a potential at times, but are rather uninteresting and grey. "Birdman" suite, which takes up the whole side is no exception. Has a vibe that could be turned to a nice piece, but is created out of the wrong type of clay.

The instrumentalism on this album is great, that is what saves it in my eyes. They were good players and they show a pretty high amount of know-how. However, something is out of place here, it just does not click, the campfire does not catch fire. Two stars in their higher register is a fair rating. Once again, this does have its moments.

My prog snob doppelganger wanted to be outraged by this record. Two founding members of the first KING CRIMSON willfully split up one of the strongest rock groups ever assembled, after recording arguably the most powerful debut album of all time...for this? I hate to sound undiplomatic, but seriously: what the heck were they thinking?

On its own slim merits the new band's first and only album can still be a very pleasant experience. But it was a retrograde career move, closer in style to the benign whimsy of GILES, GILES AND FRIPP than to the sometimes malevolent darkness of the Crimson King ("it's like a pastel black", as David St. Hubbins might have said).

It's true the album was overproduced and undermixed, by the duo's own admission. But there's more than a token measure of charm in every song, and lots of musical ideas were crammed into the two longer compositions. The opening mini-epic "Suite in C" includes a horn section, real strings, and a jazzy middle interlude very much in the current Crimson vernacular, circa 1971. And the grand finale of the ambitious "Birdman" opus anticipated the rising chords in the orchestral title track of the "Islands" album, released by KC a mere eleven months later.

An even closer overlap can be heard in "Flight of the Ibis", a sibling separated at birth from the song "Cadence and Cascade", off the parallel Crimson album "In the Wake of Poseidon". Robert Fripp would later refer to the individual LPs as "two halves of a record never made", suggesting that if the often colorful but inconsequential prog-pop of McDonald and Giles had been combined with the erratic retread of "Poseidon" the results might have been stunning. Maybe so, but I doubt if a budding maverick like Mr. Fripp could have played a melody as rinky-dink as "The Inventor's Dream" without squirming on his guitar stool.

I'm also not surprised that the offspring album failed to reach an audience. It would have been a tough sell to Crimheads expecting another "Schizoid Man" or "Epitaph", and an even harder proposition for anyone unfamiliar with these two guys (and who couldn't have cared less about their girlfriends). And yet it's really not too underwhelming an album if approached without any expectations...not exactly a glowing endorsement, but here it appears I'm leaving the last word to my less generous alter ego.

King Crimson's debut album really took off in 1969. Principal songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Ian McDonald and his drummer buddy Mike Giles decided to leave the band less than a year after they formed - though Giles stayed to drum on the 2nd album as a guest. The two of them made this album with Mike's brother Peter on bass, plus a few guest players (including Steve Winwood on organ), and then moved on to other things. Giles continued with session drumwork, and Ian went on to be a founding member of... Foreigner? It could happen. For the time being, though, McDonald and Giles were still in King Crimson mode, meaning the songs are long, progressive, and jazzy, but taking full advantage of McDonald's Beatles-like way with melody, arrangement, and song structure.

Fun Fact: The remastered CD version I just got actually changes one of the lyrics in "Suite in C" (compared to the LP version I grew up with). The line "some pussy on her knee" is changed to "black kitten on her knee", which was the intent in the first place. Ian's lesson learned: Don't refer to cats using the "p" word if you don't wish to be misunderstood.

"Suite in C" opens the record, and is the clear standout track, a nearly perfect extended suite. Themes are introduced and developed, the melodies are strong, and the solos are lovely. Pure genius. "Flight of the Ibis" , which follows, is gentle, pastoral folk-pop. Supposedly this was developed out of an early version of the Crimson song "Cadence and Cascade", and the two songs are similar but this one's a tad better in my opinion. "Is She Waiting?" is next.... Just acoustic guitars and a smidgen of piano are all this one needs. For this song, Ian paints a picture of his wife at home, biding her time until he comes back home. Sad but hopeful, and ultimately uplifting. Unbelievably beautiful and poignant. So far, we've got three incredible songs. Unfortunately, it starts to tail off just a tad from here....

"Tomorrow's People - The Children of Today" is Mike Giles's feature. He sings it, and decorates the rather simple melody with some fine drumming as always. A touching if somewhat naive ode to children, with a rocking horn-charged arrangement and some nifty percussion features. At 7 minutes, it kind of wears out its welcome, but it's a pretty pleasant song, and Giles has a charming voice.

Side Two is taken up entirely by the "Birdman" suite, featuring lyrics by Peter Sinfield, the King Crimson lyricist at the time. In fact, "Birdman" was apparently a King Crimson leftover that was never recorded. Ian wrote the music inspired by Sinfield's story-telling lyrics of a guy who figured out how to fly. As a sidelong epic, it's not the greatest one I've heard, in fact it's probably the weakest song on the album, but it still has some fine moments. The final two sections are as majestic and poignant as the album gets, and the "Workshop" section has a really funny toys-marching kind of melody. Charming stuff - but overall it falls short of my hopes and expectations. It could have used a bit more excitement and dramatic development (like "Suite in C" has), and the sections could have been integrated a little better with each other. To be blunt, it's kind of boring.

If you're a fan of early King Crimson, you need this album. It's a revealing piece of the early Crimson puzzle, and it's an inspired piece of work by two extremely talented men. However, as a piece of progressive album rock, I would grudgingly have to admit that it is not an essential work for most fans. Consider this a 4-star review if you love McDonald and Giles' work with Crimson, 3 stars for everybody else.

10/15P.: A great, but not really essential buy: a mixture of Caravan and King Crimson with more folk and jazz - and a slight tendency to be 'more style than substance' on the side of concept & creativity. Still this album is the first in prog history to feature a 20-minutes-plus epic!

1969 saw the first incarnation of the highly influential and progressive British group King Crimson go down. At first consisting of guitarist and composer Robert Fripp, bassist-singer Greg Lake, drummer Michael Giles and multi-instrumentalist Ian McDonald, the line-up-roundabout turned so that only Giles and Fripp were left in 1970, except for Greg Lake who still provided some vocals for King Crimson's second album, In the Wake of Poseidon. On that aforementioned record Michael Giles's brother Peter (the second Giles in "Giles, Giles and Fripp", the band existing in the late 60s that is considered to be the first King Crimson incarnation) was featured as the bassist.

The now solo-musician Ian McDonald, actually being able to play everything but the drums, then planned to record an LP with Michael Giles on drums and Peter Giles on bass guitar, and the result of this effort can be heard on this record McDonald & Giles.

At a glance, this album is the lighter pendant to the In the Court of the Crimson King-album, without many of the symphonic and elaborated elements like Mellotron and heavy use of the electric guitar, but with a jazzier and more psychedelic approach. The big fascination of the record are mainly the great and transparent arrangements: at many places only bass guitar, drums, vocals and acoustic guitar are to be heard. And who knows the rhythm section of King Crimson on songs like the title track of In the Wake of Poseidon knows well how fresh and simply great this sounds; and the very clear remaster makes this even better.

Michael Giles explains in the booklet how he manipulated his drum sound by mic-ing his drum set very closely - without adding any special effects (except for some tape delay bits). In combination with his elegant and innovative drumming style and with the cut-down arrangement, this is the most transparent drum sound which I have ever heard - listen to the crystal-clear saw-meets-wood-rhythm in Suite in C or the groovy samba rhythm in Tomorrow's People.

But unfortunately there are some minor problems with the music. The ideas are entirely brilliant, but especially in the big longtrack McDonald seems to have overburdened it all a bit: he somehow loses the overview about the compositions sometimes and hence cannot keep these fragilely structured pieces together. I know about the central motif of the piece which is repeated in many different contexts throughout the piece, and it's composed quite nicely, but cohesion sounds too formulaic.

The opener Suite in C, written in the winter '69/'70 and kind of a hymn for McDonald's then-girlfriend, actually works out fine as a relaxed psych-jazz-piece. The track begins with McDonald's thin, but suitable vocals and some discreet clean electric guitars, later accompanied by the sounds of a saw and nice acoustic guitar licks Turnham Green. During the textless, folk-orientated refrain the already mentioned rhythm section plus McDonald's rhythm guitar enter, jolting brilliantly in the background: one of the highlights of the record. The next refrain brings in some unobtrusive orchestra music until the band begins a crescending jazz improvisation featuring "Traffic"-keyboarder Steve Winwood on a mean piano-plus-organ-solo and McDonald on flute. Very fascinating is the way how Giles changes from a simple 4/4-beat to a much faster jazz rhythm by simply putting in more beats into a bar. Into the slowly retarding jam break McDonald's high vocals (Here I Am) which return the piece into the psychedelic/folk realms, again with effective orchestra background. The next part is a funky section including some multi-tracked saxophones and a nice rhythm with handclaps and a scrooping bass guitar by Peter Giles. Unhappily, the vocals are mixed completely into the background which leaves the listener asking what the actual effect of the lyrics shall be then. They aren't the best, but I believe that they should either be mixed loudly enough to be heard or left out completely. The bluesy doo-wop ending somehow is the top of the lyrical crown (...Come inside and have some tea, brewed by me for thee, my love...): optimistic, naive hippy poetry which doesn't hurt. At first, I thought this piece to be kind of unstructured, but - given that it was planned as a piece like the Beatles's Abbey Road Medley - I have given it a try more often and think it to be big fun, even though it sounds heavily 'zeitgeisty'.

Flight of the Ibis is the original version of Cadence and Cascade and is one of my personal favorites with its delicately arranged sound. Contrary to the version that was issued later by King Crimson, this track features drums and bass guitar and is an optimistic folk-pop-track in the late-60s-style. I like the prominent use of the zither (fine solo in the middle) and the electric piano here, as well as the great rhythm section again. A great song and probably the one of the LP that I listen to most frequently.

Is She Waiting?, written in the summer of '69, is a melancholic Beatles-She's Leaving Home-type ballad with notable baroque-influences featuring McDonald singing and playing along on the acoustic guitar and the piano. The different melodies that counterpoint each other here are quite trickily linked.

Tomorrow's People, written by Michael Giles in 1967, is for me easily the best track on the album. A typical King Crimson brass introduction with many overdubs (trombone, saxophone, organ) leads into a really fat groove with smashing cymbals, Giles's edgy vocals, nice Hammond organs and simple, but astonishing guitar licks. After a short highspeed drum fill-in the brass also enters until after two minutes a funky jam with plenty of percussion and an awesome samba rhythm starts while the flute improvises along. In this song, the quality of the drum sound reaches its peak: each rattle, tom, cymbal or whatever can be defined very well. You should really listen to that with a good pair of headphones, especially the first stanza (0:16) with some powerful hi-hat-strokes. The second part could be a lost part of I Talk to The Wind - with lush trombones, flutes and discreet ride cymbal hits - which is however only a connection to another reprise of the stanza. The soft ending takes its time and fades out gradually, then fading in again and ending with a pleasing major chord. Great, as one seldom hears the three of them play that 'straightly'.

Birdman, the sidelong piece of the album, is actually not the best epic. But I have to admit that it is one of the first - I sometimes tend to forget that. The different sections, lasting from 40 seconds to six and a half minutes and the only thing that holds this bunch of tracks together is a loose topic based on Pete Sinfield's lyrics about man's wish of flying. There seems to be a certain melody which reoccurs in this piece, but even this doesn't change it that this is no epic, but a collection of (good) ideas. Probably the division of the longtrack into several programmable tracks on the CD is a sign for that as well, that this is meant to be just a suite, a 'suivre' of several ideas, but this doesn't make it more successful. But of course it isn't as bad as it might sound now as the parts regarded solely are mostly quite okay. The first section, The Inventor's Dream is based on quite intelligent vocal choirs with lots of reverb by McDonald and Giles, creating a mighty church-like atmosphere. Dissonances that solve in consonances in an interesting manner and the way how McDonald's high and Giles's low voice harmonize together are quite impressing here. Then sound effects come in, something like the spring reverb in combination with pulling out the drawbars of the Hammond organ as an illustration for the dream of flying until synthesizers, zithers and percussion fade into the soundscape to show how the inventor wakes up. This 'mickey-mousing', the effect when the music does exactly what is happening in the text just like the melody descends when Mickey Mouse falls down the stairway, can be found everywhere in the longtrack and ranges somewhere between inventive and predictable. McDonald probably seems to have clinged to the lyrics too much. An oddly minimal, but very interesting part follows, with very exact fourths played on the organ accompanied by a slightly offset rhythm which creates a nice triolic sound. The vocals provide a somewhat dadaistic Canterbury mood which fits nicely to the year when the piece was mainly composed (1968). In the end of the piece we get to hear fast acoustic guitars to illustrate the sound of a pencil (formulaic, ain't it?) while the next part The Workshop is a fast-paced blues jam with nice saxophone work by McDonald and again a fascinating rhythm section consisting of McDonald on electric guitar and the two Giles brothers on saw, drums and bass. Wishbone Ascension lifts the piece up with sacral Hammond organ and prepares the listener for the bombastic parts of "Birdman". A jazzy part features Giles again on vocals and prominent saxophones and leads into the next section via some fine towering vocals. Then we get into the very lengthy Birdman Flies section where a chord progression is exercised with the orchestra, starting with simple electric piano, organ and ride cymbals and going on (chronologically) with flute, drums, acoustic guitar, leslied electric guitar and then the orchestra which succeeds in adding texture to the piece. It might be a bit long, but it doesn't become boring either. Wings In The Sunset serves as a very short segue to the last part by exposing its (second) main theme in a vocal version. The piano-dominated, romantic The Reflection is a nice way of ending the longtrack. The general character of this section is similar to "Birdman Flies" as at first there is only the piano playing a melody and later drums, textless vocals, drums, saxophones and orchestra are added. A trumpet is looped in the very end and slowly fades out. It's pretty much similar to Anthony Phillips' Sleepfall which ends his The Geese and the Ghost album: similar melody and similar arrangement.

All in all this is a good record, one that I love listening to, but also one that is - seen from the progressive point of view - somehow mediocre on side B. Especially the "Birdman" suite has got some problems with the fluency as there are often very homogeneous longer parts linked with shorter parts. But which other band from the progressive rock realms had recorded an epic side-long track at that time? Birdman was recorded in May-June 1970 - and King Crimson's Lizard in autumn 1970. The only inspiration could have been Pink Floyd's masterwork Atom Heart Mother (performed live without orchestra in April 1970) and Soft Machine's Rivmic Melodies (but which isn't an epic), but in fact most of the Birdman parts were already conceived between 1967 and 1969. All in all a historic recording, in a way.

Nevertheless, I recommend the record to everyone who is interested in the early King Crimson, Canterbury and jazz rock, and to those who are interested in delicate arrangements because this one is extremely impressing. I would give 10/15 points for this record, which means a really good 3/5 points-rating.

When I heard about the existence of this album in the 70´s I knew I had to get it, since I was a huge fan of King Crimson and In The Court Of The Crimson King is definitly one of my favorite CDs of all time. It took me a long, long time to finally put my hands on one copy of Mcdonald & Giles (already the CD version in the early 90´s). It was some disapointment! Maybe my expectations were very high after all those years. The fact is: what made King Crimson MK I so great was the chemistry between all band members, not one or even two specific guys, no matter how talent each one was as individuals.KG was bigger than the sum of its parts.

And definitly, there are some missing parts here. The vocals are very weak (not a Greg Lake or even a Gordon Haskell in sight...). The guitar parts are nonexistent (man.. do I miss Robert Fripp!). Of course everything is well done and the playing is good, the music in general is nice, but some parts are simply silly and pointless. The best tracks are Birdman and Suite in C. If you are a fan of jazz and 60´s psychodelic influenced jams, welcome. But this is not my cup of tea.

Production is only average and my CD version sounds poor, so I really don´t know if there is a better, remastered version available. Be aware.

Not really a bad record, but this is not the kind of CD I wanted to hear, specially when there are so many talented people involved. Mcdonald & Giles? I expected more. For collectors and fans only.

More than half of the early Crimson are together for this effort. They are supported by no less than Steve Windwood on the keys and Peter Sinfield also gave them a hand for the lyrics.

On paper, these are great ingredients and when you listen to this album, this positive feeling is confirmed. The Crimsonesque style is to be felt during the long opening track which combines complex passages, jazzy parts and tranquil moods.

The short Flight Of The Ibis denotes an evident Beatles influence and the pastoral Is She Waiting sounds a bit childish: it is full of innocence and not very much memorable.

The second song which is more KC oriented is Tomorrow's People. It features a beautiful flute part as well as atmospheric keyboards. It is a very enjoyable track as well.

The pièce de résistance of this album is of course the epic Birdman. It is a fine song which is mostly symphonic (keyboards, flute). It might lack of texture and inspiration but is not boring at any moment. The finale is a moving moment IMO (but I am maybe too sentimental here.);

This album should please all KC fans who were enthusiasts about their symphonic and more accessible part of their early repertoire (to whom I fully belong). It is a pity that this effort remained the sole example of this collaboration. I would have liked to listen more of this type of music.

Four stars.