MATRIX — Matrix (aka IX) (review)

Album · 1976 · Fusion

4.5/5 · 2024-08-22
FunkFreak75

The debut album from this very-mature-sounding big band of Jazz-Rock Fusion enthusiasts from Wisconsin (where I live)--with six (!) full-time members of the horn section.

1. "Earth And The Overlords" (3:42) an odd adventure into near-funky jazz-rock that tries to cross over into Jazz-Rock Fusion the way Don Ellis' orchestra pioneered it but comes up short. (8.875/10)

2. "Catalpa Complex" (6:29) a little more funking but a little more big band-like too. The best section is the funky synth solo in the third minute when the horns are silent and the bass and percussion can be heard. No wonder it's got some nice keyboard centricity to it: it's composed by keyboard player John Harmon--a member whose position in the band will move more toward leadership over the course of the next few albums. The choral vocals in the fith and sixth minutes give the song even more of an AVERAGE WHITE BAND feel despite the more big band-sounding horn arrangements. Nice drum work in the final minute though it feels a little academic--rehearsed (and maybe charted). (9/10)

3. "Blue Snow" (2:36) quite cinematic in an ECM/Eberhard Weber-kind of way. Speaking of ECM, the sound quality of this album is so clean and pristine that it begs asking to know more about Ray Papai and his Ultra Nova Records in Lake Geneva! (9.5/10)

4. "Dark Riders" (5:52) a rather unique musical experience in that this song feels as if it was intended as a soundtrack accompaniment to something like the "Monkey Chant" from the film Baraka. Very interesting and visionary! (9/10)

5. "Clea" (10:05) more contemplative music that sounds like it could come from Paul Winter Consort, Weather Report, or maybe even Bob James. Soprano sax, gentle bass and electric piano and percussion play. In the middle the band collective provides wordless choral chants. Then it turns very dreamy with keys, gentle wind-like percussives, and sonorous trumpet soloing over the top. Worded choral vocals enter in the seventh minute. Such interesting and unusual music! I am truly impressed! And it ends like an ECM version of "Edelweiss"! (18/20)

6. "Geese "(1:42) horns working in a flock-like mathematical weave of individual honks. Pretty cool! (4.5/5)

7. "The Last Generation" (6:46) another odd song that seems to blend and bridge many styles and sounds--sometimes feeling conflicting, sometimes feeling perfect, at others purposely awkward and tension-filled while behaving as if perfectly intended to be exactly as provocative and ambiguous as it is. Like projecting/predicting a future jazz onto the soundscape of 2001: A Space Odyssey. Too bad the arrangement of the horn section and the drum play are so "standard" otherwise this would really work! (13.75/15)

Total Time 37:12

Definitely a surprising, haunting album of resfreshingly creative, one might say innovative Jazz-Rock Fusion--unlike anything I've ever encountered yet in my deep dive into the history of J-R Fusion. I have to admit to liking future bass player Randy Tico's bold fretless work on Tale of the Whale more than Randall Fird's rather tame and unobtrusive work on this album. Overall, I'm not sure whether I like all of this music despite the fact that I appreciate and greatly admire the quirky, unorthodox, "out of the box" compositions contained herein.

A-/five stars; a minor masterpiece of innovative and eccentric Jazz-Rock Fusion.