JAZZ PROG
Sid Smith rounds up the best releases from prog’s jazzier reaches.
Major Surgery’s Rare Live Performances 1978 (Lost In Music) represents a new chapter in an otherwise forgotten and overlo oked outfit active in the 70s. Led by saxophonist Don Well er, these previously unrelease d live sessions bristle with elements of Soft Machine and Nucleus, wherein smartly crafted tunes are delivered with razor preci sion, offset with Weller’s customary passion. Pete Jacobson’s keyboard s spar with Jimmy Roche’s biting lead guitar, expanding the band’s tonal range as Bruce Collcutt’s bass and Tony Marsh’s drumming mine a funkish undertow. A welcome and essential addition to our understanding of UK jazz-rock in that era.