Composer and saxophonist Brian Brown produced some of the most forward thinking Australian jazz recordings in the 70’s and 80’s. Albums like The Planets, Wildflowers and Winged Messenger which were an extraordinary run of releases, where avant garde and free experimentation met musicality and even at times fusion.His 1975 album Carlton Streets incorporated all of these, a love letter to the Melbourne neighbourhood. there’s so much going in this 10 minute plus title track, and it offers a pretty accurate insight into this remarkable insight into Brown’s quartet – made up of Barry Buckley, Bob Sedergreen, and Ted Vining,
This is what they have to say about it:
“Comparable to other pioneering jazz-rock groups such as Ian Carr’s Nucleus and mid-period Soft Machine, the album is a mosaic of ecstatic jazz-rock groove, spirited free improvisation and expanded experimental textures. A potent fusion that owes as much to Australian 20th-century avant-garde composers as it does to the influence of the electric jazz innovators, specifically early Weather Report and Herbie Hancock’s Mwandishi.”
Carlton Streets, which was restored from original master tapes is out now via The Roundtable. You can find it here.
