Brian Auger & The Trinity-Befour (1970)

In 1969, Julie Driscoll decided to leave Trinity, the band she led with Brian Auger, with whom she had released some of the best rhythm and blues and jazz fusion rock albums of the 1960s ("Open", "Jools and Brian", and "Streetnoise"). Despite this significant departure, Brian Auger decided to carry on, recruiting guitarist Gary Winston Boyle. Together with the rest of the lineup,Dave Ambrose (bass), Clive Thacker (drums), and Auger himself (keyboards and vocals), they recorded Trinity's sixth album, "Befour", released in mid-1970 by RCA. Drummers Mickey Waller, Barry Reeves, and Colin Allen also contributed to the album. On "Befour", Auger presents a series of surprising jazz-rock and groovy fusion covers, driven by Brian Auger's brilliant work on the Hammond organ and Boyle's phenomenal guitar style. The ingenious interpretations of the classics "Pavane" and "Adagio per Archie e Organo" showcase Brian Auger's intelligent style, which, far from seeming pretentious, demonstrates his incredible mastery of the organ. The atmospheric version of Traffic's "No Time to Live" is performed in a haunting manner, while the audacious cover of Herbie Hancock's "Maiden Voyage" is unorthodoxly but equally effectively redirected to the territory where the band excels. The exuberant "Listen Here", a brutal fusion of jazz-rock rhythms with four drummers and two bassists delivering undeniably powerful sounds, and the captivating "Just You Just Me" are tracks that foreshadow the direction Auger and Oblivion Express will take in the following years. The latter is a hypnotic piece of repetitive rhythms with intricate guitar work and captivating, atmospheric organ solos. With this album Brian Auger once again created a work that was as vibrant as it was captivating, and a true masterpiece of early 70s jazz rock.