Jade Warrior (1971)

Since going to a weekly approach I've been pretty verbose. It's not secret that I have a lot to say about Ritchie Blackmore and the Kinks and how little they overlap, but Jade Warrior is a true outlier in my collection. In fact, if a colleague hadn't (mistakenly?) slipped it into a stack of CD's for me to borrow about 10 years ago, I doubt I would even know who the heck they were.

Jade Warrior is certainly a "different" kind of band and they have existed in one form or another since the release of this album in 1971, born out of a series of psych/pop 1960's bands I've never heard of. Loosely speaking, the first three albums tack more progressive rock, while the albums from 1974 onward are decidedly more ambient/chillout stuff that probably appealed more to fans of the growing "new age" musical style. The first three albums were released on the Vertigo label, which had quite a reputation in the early 1970's for releasing premier hard and progressive rock, while the rest of the decade was handled by Island, which insisted on stripping the band down to a duo instrumental act that bears little resemblance to the Vertigo albums.

The first album, though unmistakably a rock album, owes a lot more to the still-yet-undefined "world" music sound than the two albums that would follow. This likely has to do with the DIY percussion by the members of the trio. This would be replaced or augmented by "real" drums on the next two albums. Although all Jade Warrior album covers are Japanese-inspired, the music draws from all corners of the world, Japan included. This album also pioneered the band's distinct "loud-quiet-loud" style. Within songs, mellow flute-driven music is frequently interrupted by fuzz-distorted electric guitar, particularly in the multi-part songs "Dragonfly Day" and "Masai Morning". Among songs, mostly-rock songs like "Telephone Girl" and "A Prenormal Day in Brighton" will nestle comfortably against mostly quiet songs like "The Traveller" or "Slow Ride". Browsing the various YouTube comments, it's not surprising to see people making comparisons to Jethro Tull and Santana, mainly due to the flute and guitar playing styles more than the song structures themselves.

In future years, the band would continue to consolidate around guitarist Tony Duhig. Unfortunately Duhig's health was fragile at best in the 1980's and album releases were few and far between. Following his death in 1990, the band ultimately decided to continue on, with Jon Field, the sole remaining original member, later bringing Glyn Havard back. He had been squeezed out of the band following the label change to Island. The band continues on to this day as a trio, with Havard on guitar, and 1980's addition Dave Sturt on bass. As with the Island albums onward, they are augmented by a large cast of session musicians. They maintain an informative website that can probably explain things better than I ever can.