JULIAN JAY SAVARIN : WAITERS ON THE DANCE

The brainchild of this musical project is Julian Savarin. He was born in Dominica but moved with his family to Britain in the early Sixties. He was a writer and a keyboard player and longing to fullfill his musical ideas. Julian recruited his own band with John Dover on bass, Del Watkins on guitar, Jack Drummond on drums and Cathy Pruden on vocals. They started rehearsing and gigging round London as Julian's Treatment. In june '70 the label Youngblood released their first album "A Time Before This". Two years later Julian was approached by Birth records to make a new album. Only bass player John Dover came from the old line-up, other musicians of Julian's new band were Nigel Jenkins (guitar), Roger Odell (drums) and Lady JoMeek (vocals). And in '73 the second album "Waiters On The Dance" came out, credited by Julian J. Savarin (nowadays a famous SF writer!).

The music on this second album sounds very dated and relatively simple but the atmospheres are often very compelling, due to the warm and powerful voice of Lady JoMeek (with echoes from Annie Haslam but with more emotion), the omnipresent floods of Hammond organ, some majestic flute - and violin Mellotron drops, fiery guitar play and a fluent rhythm-section. The album contains six compositions, all are on the compilation A Time Before This .. Plus except the track Dance Of The Golden Flamingoes (wonderful interplay between Melotron and Hammond organ), that's why I have bought this CD!

Julian's Treatment their melodic and tasteful sound has echoes from Earth & Fire, Rare Bird and Bram Stoker, blended with some psychedelic undertones and harder-edged guitar work. In my opinion this is one of the most overlooked gems on Prog Archives!