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The varied career of a British soul-jazz one-off finds a new home.

By Jim Irvin.

Organ accumulator: the multi-faceted jazz handed skills of Brian Auger early days at the old joanna; with The Trinity; with Steampacket Rod Stewart, Long John Baldry, Julie Driscoll and Auger.

INVARIABLY SEATED behind a keyboard, Brian Auger, 83, has carved out a unique musical route for himself since the early 1960s: starting out as a jazz pianist, switching to Hammond (Brian Organ!) and R&B, forming Steampacket with Long John Baldry and Rod Stewart, briefly becoming a pop star in 1969 – his distinctive feral Peter Pan look stayed in the mind – with his band The Trinity and the equally striking Julie Driscoll, making a couple of broadly progressive albums under that banner, then living in a ‘jazz commune’ in Prague before spending much of the 1970s and ’80s heading up Oblivion Express, a funky fusion troupe he steered from the United States.

Taking sojourns in hard rock and acid jazz in subsequent decades, he has survived mainly in the niches between genres, always following his own lead, and has been described as, “Absolutely one of your favourite musician’s favourite musicians.”

Now, Soul Bank Music has acquired the rights to this one-off’s extensive catalogue. Says founder Greg Boraman: “This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to fully reissue everything Brian has released, and also finally unleash the vast number of musical gems from [his] archive that have never been heard before. It’s a goldmine of sounds from a 60-year career.”

The first release is Auger Incorporated, a career-spanning digital taster compilation, featuring early unreleased tune The Preacher, his 1968 collaboration with Sonny Boy Williamson (the track Walkin’ featuring Joe Harriott and Jimmy Page), tracks from the abandoned Steampacket album (including a bracing cover of Lee Morgan’s The Sidewinder), Auger’s hits with Driscoll and The Trinity, plus a previously unreleased tune, Jeanine, and prime moments from Oblivion Express, including some nice live rarities that set up the re-release later this year of the two-volume Live Oblivion, a sprawling banquet of souljazz jewels including covers of Inner City Blues and Compared To What.

It was their sultry blending of soul and rock with the freedom of jazz that set The Trinity apart at the end of the ’60s. While acts like Cream launched out of the blues, Auger set sail with a view to a more varied, more Mod direction. Thus, Trinity cut songs by Dylan – their chart hit Wheels On Fire plucked from the then unreleased Basement Tapes – Richie Havens (his heady Indian Rope Man), and a rousing tilt at Sly Stone’s I Wanna Take You Higher on their Befour album. All of these tracks are in Auger Incorporated and sound great. In fact, some of these masters improve upon the contemporary cuts.