You immediately recognize your music. Sometimes you have the presumption that it chooses you. And in every note, you insert pieces of your life, of your small private world made of lights and shadows. If it is often our nostalgic side, the weaker one, that takes over and attracts certain emotions, there are other times when certain sounds manage to convey an irrepressible positivity. Your day brightens up. And you say, “today everything will go right!”. Well, I feel I can say that If undoubtedly fit into this latter category. Theirs is a free and sunny jazz rock, full of good vibes, which chooses instinct over reason. Music that carries the flavors of those early seventies, of that desire for freedom and change, which chases contaminations and hybridizations between various languages.
The band draws inspiration from the intuitions of various Blood, Sweat & Tears and Colosseum and reworks them into its own personal code, which avoids the tortuous experimental paths and embraces a more direct approach, still linked to improvisation and groove exploration. A formula that found brief and ephemeral success on British soil, but failed to establish itself overseas. They would say: “too jazzy for rock, too loud for jazz”. In short, an unfortunate but happy middle ground.
If was formed in the late sixties around the figures of saxophonist Dick Morrissey and guitarist Terry Smith, both virtuosos and already established musicians, still young and ambitious enough to jump on the "new music" train. Nevertheless, what immediately catches the ear in the sound of the group is its absolute cohesion, the interplay between the various musicians, and the equal distribution of spaces and solos.
The self-titled debut album, released in 1970, is a fresh and enveloping work, one of the most flourishing sprouts of that era. A work that shows its ability to intelligently draw from blues roots, as in the ethereal opener "I’m Reaching Out On All Sides", then opening up to the airy pop melodies of "Raise The Level Of Your Conscious Mind". All appropriately reworked in the jazz-based arrangements so dear to the group. The impulses of a fanciful and engaging rhythm section, punctuated by never-trivial interventions of the organ or piano, create a perfect sound carpet on which the illuminated solo excursions rise. From the clusters of guitar notes, crystalline and flowing like light thoughts, to the swirling paths of a sax reminiscent of Coltrane ("What Can A Friend Say"), to the acrobatic evolutions of a compelling flute in the instrumental “What Did I Say About the Box" (Ian Anderson docet). There is still room for the unusual ballad "Dockland", with a smoky mood and lazy percussion, and for the enthralling “The Promised Land”, whose refrain remains indelibly impressed from the first listen. The powerful and warm timbre of singer J.W. Hodkinson finally seals it all, in an album that never shows its side and leaves you enveloped in an emotional undertow of rare intensity.
This music overflows with positive energy, a resonating chamber of the soul, music that invites us to face the new day with a smile on our lips. But if after listening things don't go right, don't blame me though!
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