PRESENTS THE ADVENTURES OF THE ASTRAL PIRATES

One of those outstanding jazz scene virtuoso's, drummer Lenny White made his bones playing for the likes of Miles Davis(he appeared on the seminal 1969 album 'Bitches Brew') and Chick Corea's 'Return To Forever'. However, like fellow sticksman Billy Cobham, White soon tired of playing other people's material and set off on his own solo journey with 1975's well-received 'Venusian Summer'. One more album followed - 1977's 'Fat City' - before White, in tandem with fellow musicians Don Blackman, Nick Moroch and Alex Blake, created the following years 'The Adventures Of Astral Pirates', an album deemed by many fans to be his finest release of all. A kind of hyper-real, sci-fi themed, jazz-fusion concept piece, this 1978 album features one of the more colourful sleeve designs of the decade(no mean feat) and a succession of inter-linking pieces, all played with impressive quicksilver precision. Highlights include the Eastern-tinged 'Mandaran Warlords', which segues smoothly from ominous opening tones to delectable old-school jazz riffery, the seven-minute White-only penned closer 'Climax', which inserts up-scale tribal drum licks into a fizzing brew of skilful hi-tech jamming, and last but by no means least the snazzy, funk-dipped strut of 'The Great Pyramid'. Although by no means in the same exulted class as fellow fusion proprietors Return To Forever and the Mahavishnu Orchestra, this colourful album does still feature its fair share of dazzling instrumental moments; as a result, 'The Adventures Of Astral Pirates' should more than please all you 1970's fusion freaks. STEFAN TURNER, STOKE NEWINGTON, 2013