JCM
Heroes

The equation that defines this album is as follows:

JCM = ½ Colosseum

In other words, it's the rhythm section of the aforementioned senior band in action here, with the only addition of their historic guitarist, thus doing without the saxophonist (who passed away long ago), keyboardist, and lead singer. The acronym of the moniker is generated, with a pinch of imagination, from the initials of their names: John (Hiseman), Clem (Clempson), Mark (Clarke).

Every record enthusiast who is also a rock musician, myself included (even if amateur), has a set of untouchable idols among the multitude of instrumentalists who populate the vast legacy that this genre has handed over to history. These are people of utmost reference and admiration, treated with the deepest and eternal gratitude. Well, one of the gods of my personal Olympus is certainly Jon Hiseman, a formidable rhythm machine from London, unfortunately sadly passed away four years ago, right after this album release.

The expertise of this trio is absolute... old hands churned out by the British blues school of the sixties, seasoned with the original masters of the genre and having gone through a thousand experiences and setbacks. The project behind this handful of covers (and self-covers!), already hinted at by its very title, was Hiseman's intention to pay tribute to a series of brilliant former colleagues, at that time all more or less recently departed. It's up to the same leader of Colosseum (oops... JCM) to pen the respective dedications in the cover notes.

"The Kettle", which opens the album, was intended to also open the better-known work of Colosseum: "Valentyne Suite" from 1969. A piece mostly composed by their saxophonist Dick Heckstall Smith and therefore dedicated to him. The JCM version is much more solid and rocky than the somewhat psychedelic and disorganized one from half a century ago. It is particularly well sung by bassist Clarke, who sings almost everything here, and additionally, there is a delightful wah-wah guitar, very, very Clapton-like.

"Strangeher" was instead on Tempest's first work (1972) and functions as a tribute to Allan Holdsworth, the formidable guitarist of the group at that occasion. Hiseman and Clarke were already present back then, so it's again a self-cover. The excellent Clem Clempson even ventures to trace with the lead guitar, note for note, a few measures of the unattainable solo by Holdsworth, managing only to touch the cosmic fluidity and dexterity of the virtuous, lamented Allan: a delightful shuffle rock+jazz+blues, with a riff like no other, cascading solos that rock (although Holdsworth's original is truly off the scale, an unattainable thing, worthy of the Arc of Glory, and even with the air of having been played just like that, on the fly, good the first time!).

A proper cover that eventually appears is "Weird of Hermiston", a tribute to its composer Jack Bruce (found on "Songs for a Taylor", his first solo album from 1969), and you can tell by the unusual and airy melody of the chorus, very much in his style. Hiseman and Bruce played together in British blues groups in the sixties (Graham Bond Organization) and Hiseman had already taken the splendid "Theme for an Imaginary Western" from the same Bruce album and added it to the Colosseum repertoire. Clempson also had an experience with the seminal, lamented bassist towards the end of the seventies, in the Jack Bruce Band, and indeed the Scottish Cream hero is doubly on the lineup as later another of his rock blues, "Grease the Wheels", which closed his 1989 album titled "A Question of Time", is resurrected.

"Four Day Creep" is a slow, dragging blues from the Humble Pie repertoire, another pillar of British blues rock straddling the sixties and seventies. Surely a proposal by Clarke, who had been part of that lineup for a certain time. This good bassist and decent singer has tirelessly pursued good music and tried to achieve significant recognition, but without managing to distance himself from niche fame and recognition, almost as if among insiders. Besides Colosseum, Tempest, and Humble Pie, he has also played with Uriah Heep, Billy Squier, Monkees, Ian Hunter, Rainbow, Michael Bolton, Mountain... The track is still dominated by Clempson's big guitar, which also assists Clarke in singing it.

"Yeah Yeah Yeah" is a self-cover again from the Tempest repertoire, but this time from their second and last album where the guitarist was no longer Holdsworth but the unfortunate Ollie Halsall, another rascal with a completely unmatched performing and creative style, an incredible thing. It's a shame that the track chosen to celebrate him is not among his most poignant... a rock blues attempting to be "commercial" and which does not include guitar solos, a heresy with someone like Halsall present. If they had chosen "Dance To My Tune" from the same album, I would have personally derived much more pleasure, as Halsall's endless solo in it is simply, to my taste, the most beautiful solo I've known (and I've heard twenty thousand of them)!

To console me, Hiseman includes something else of value from Tempest, again celebrating the mythical Holdsworth, namely "Foyers of Fun", equipped with an intriguing jazz-blues riff all in counter-time, with a faint reminiscence of the Cream's "Sunshine of Your Love".

Another hero of Hiseman (and also mine) celebrated in this work is Gary Moore, whose "Rivers" from the Colosseum II repertoire is covered, a rebirth of the group in the late seventies with new companions, including the then-young Moore. From that same group, the instrumental "The Inquisition" is also proposed again, a very brilliant and successful fusion episode, albeit generic.

"Only Sixteen" is by, and dedicated to, Graham Bond, the old master: an orthodox but vigorous blues with the best solo from Clap... uh, Clempson, while a final tribute is paid to Larry Coryell, who died recently and was also part of the circle that started moving in mid-sixties around London (I'd give an arm to be catapulted in time to those years and wander around Soho every night and catch all the concerts of this rock blues group, and then Pink Floyd, etc.). His "The Real Great Escape" is covered.

It's an album for enthusiasts... to fully enjoy it, one must have all the works of Cream, Led Zeppelin, Free, and so on in their collection, and consider them as relics to be protected and periodically dusted off. Moreover, it is melancholically ironic that, following Hiseman's tribute to old companions who were no longer around, he himself passed away shortly afterward.