The New York Rock & Roll Ensemble (Vinyl record album review)

Record basics

Album name: The New York Rock & Roll Ensemble

Group name: The New York Rock & Roll Ensemble

Year: 1968

Number of discs: one

Label: ATCO

Collection: Brenner / Gessner

Who owned it: my father

Buy it on Amazon: $4.49

My review

Level of familiarity before listening

I am not familiar with this group at all.

What I expected

I’d guess maybe jazz-rock fusion, but not as electric or psychedelic as The Mahavishnu Orchestra?

What it was actually like

I wouldn’t say it was jazz-rock fusion. It definitely had an experimental quality to it, and was primarily rock with a lot of jazz influence, as well as R&B and classical.

Sounds Of Time, for example, was like a mid 1960s rock song but with a distinct jazz sound, and tight vocal harmonies, and then a jazzy guitar solo that was much more psychedelic.

Studeao Atlantis, however, had the same tightly harmonized vocals – and I didn’t care much for them in this case – in a song that was far more psychedelic jazz. There was a guitar riff that was instantly recognizable as… I’m not sure what, exactly… maybe it was just meant to sound vaguely “eastern,” but it definitely worked, and I loved the jazz percussion and the whining guitar.

Another that I loved was Monkey, more of an R&B song that was definitely written for dancing, and that had a great guitar solo.

Poor Pauline was a Beatles parody, and specifically a serious attempt to channel Faul’s granny shit, and they actually did a good job at it. Mr. Tree also sounded oddly like a Beatles parody, but with more of a synthesizer sound.

Began To Burn and She’s Gone were both more conventional rock songs, but of the two, the latter was more rhythmic and I liked it a lot better.

Besides those, Bach’s Trio Sonata No. 1 In C Major (2nd Movement) was more or less as its title suggested, and I thought Pick Up In The Morning was weird, with kind of a silly sounding chorus, but good!

The Seasons, which consisted of four parts – a) Fall (with harpsichord), b) Winter (with organ), c) Spring (with chirping birds, running water and a keyboard) and d) Summer (with whistling, guitar, then carnival whistles, then back to what it had been, then back to Mr. Tree) – did not make a whole lot of sense.

Grade

4/5: would listen again