Ray Russell-Dragon Hill-1970

Here's a great little LP on the short lived CBS Realm label series,which released other quite stunning albums by..Gordon Beck,Frank Ricotti Tony Oxley, and Barry Guy among others.

Ray Russell, a british Guitarist who despite having a jazz background,much like his contemporary Chris Spedding say, seems to have spent a lot of his professional life in the studios,
making library records for TV, and Films as well as playing on dozens of well known rock albums by Phil Spector, Art Garfunkel, Tina Turner, Dionne Warwick and countless others.

.He was also notably in Harry Beckett's Sound of Joy and similar fusion projects in the mid 70's.

This though is an exploratory at times quite free set of sophisticated extended post bop compositions , flavoured by  touches of RnB, and Rock.

Russell's an interesting thoughtful player who's playing here is fluid,inventive even ecstatic!.yeah very beautiful sitting to these ears somewhere between 60's john Mclaughlin and Sonny sharrock's
'Tauhid" period, and just as interesting..

relistening again after many years... one hears a strong stylistic connection to early Soft Machine,as well as Jack Bruce Elton Dean  and Keith Tippett's contemporaneous free inflected Fusion albums...

heres a link to his website
and discogs entry

be nice to know more about some of the other players here, of whom really only Ron Mathewson, Harry Beckett, and Lyn Dobson are familiar names..

This record has to my knowledge, yet to be reissued , though the even better "Rituels" from 1971 posted here by boromir in 2008 , has been, as has live at the ICA on RCA also from 71
Righteous RAY!!
enjoy!

Ray Russell - Rites and Rituals 1971 LP rip

When I bought this LP, thirty odd years ago, I'd never heard of Ray Russell. I bought it primarily because it featured Harry Beckett, who was, and still is, a big favourite of mine. Funnily enough, all these years later, I've still heard little of him, though apparently he is a cult figure in some quarters, and has made numerous recordings. His style on this recording is akin to that of John McLaughlin at the time, and is accompanied my some stalwarts of the British 70s jazz scene. Runswick is also a bit of an enigma to me. This is the only example of his work I've heard, but he really is excellent on both accoustic and electric bass.

I've included quite a lengthy resume of Russell's career in the rip for those people who can be bothered to read such stuff. Somewhat surprisingly, he's composed and recorded a number of TV theme tunes, including one which will be familiar to Brits - "Bergerac", the 80s detective series set in Jersey, that hotbed of crime, starring John (Barnaby) Nettles.

Details:

Ray Russell - gt
Tony Roberts - reeds
Harry Beckett - flg
Nick Evans - tb
Daryl Runswick - bass
Alan Rushton - dr

Tracks
Sarana
Rites and Rituals
Abyss
Cradle Hill

Recorded De Lane Lea Studios August 1970
Relased on CBS 64271

MP3 and Flac links in comments. Sorry no covers, no scanner at the moment.