Selection: Torsohttps://londonjazzcollector.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/nucleus_torso_solar-plexus-vertigo-1971-original-1-pressing.mp3. . .
Track List
A1 Elements I & II
A2 Changing Times
A3 Bedrock Deadlock
A4 Spirit Level
B1 Torso
B2 Snakehips’ Dream
Artists: “Ian Carr with Nucleus”
Ron Mathewson, bass guitar; Jeff Clyne, bass, double bass; John Marshall, drums, percussion; Karl Jenkins, electric piano, baritone saxophone, Chris Spedding, guitar; Chris Karan, percussion; Keith Winter, synthesizer; Tony Roberts, tenor saxophone, bass clarinet; Brian Smith, tenor saxophone, soprano saxophone, flute; Harry Beckett, trumpet, flugelhorn (tracks:A3,A4), Ian Carr, Kenny Wheeler (tracks: A1,A2,B1,B2); recorded in London, England, 14 & 15 of December 1970, by Philips engineer Roger Wake.
Artist Highlights: Trumpeter Ian Carr moved on to a varied career in jazz writing (The Rough Guide to Jazz, teaching (Guildhall) and occasional performance, passing away in 2009.
Karl Jenkins and John Marshall left this first iteration of Nucleus in 1972, to join the ultimate British prog-rock band Soft Machine. Drummer Marshall passed away only last year in September 2023. Karl Jenkins, now Sir Karl Jenkins, still with us pushing 80.
Saxophonist from New Zealand, Brian Smith, cursed with the world’s most common forgettable English name (a quick internet search turned up over 200 Brian Smith’s), but tenor soloist on fire, great! Smith continues to enjoy his retirement in his home New Zealand.
Chris Spedding, dependable session guitarist over five decades, chops and picks away to add some rock special sauce. Spedding’s later highlights include touring with Roxy Music (Brian Ferry) and live on stage in front of Jeff Wayne’s Musical War Of The Worlds (Democrat polls put The Martians slightly ahead). Spedding still picking…
Music:
Microsoft’s A I co-pilot says: “Solar Plexus is a fascinating album with a mix of jazz, rock, and experimental sounds. Each track offers something unique, making it a compelling listen from start to finish“. A I pads out each sentence with generic hyperbole. Billions in development. “Billions? Astonishing value!” says A I. Rival AI ChatGPT adds: “Nucleus’s music remains an essential part of jazz history, especially within the fusion genre, and their LPs continue to be celebrated by jazz enthusiasts and collectors.” Blimey, who’d have thought it. (CoPilot flounces off).
LJC says: British progressive jazz rock 1970’s style, building on the breakaway from American jazz forms in the latter part of the ’60s by the Rendell Carr Quintet (and others) , continuing to forge ahead into jazz-rock territory, co-opting electric guitar, piano and bass to a frontline of acoustic brass and woodwind. Ian Carr’s guiding hand is never far from the tiller, navigating the Nucleus craft through rocky waters, contributing the occasional solo in that familiar Rendell Carr Quintet manner and tone. His presence is restricted to a couple of tracks on some Nucleus albums, but he still has an inspirational trumpet voice.
Nucleus recorded a dozen albums under the Nucleus name – occasionally incorporating Ian Carr and/ with Nucleus. They thankfully avoided the lure of jazz-funk, which seduced our great young tenor Dick Morrissey. Their formula is in the prog camp, experimental dramatic effects, symphonic melody lines, driving rock excursions, expansive tenor/soprano/ bass clarinet jazz solos, inevitably some drum solos (glances at watch, heads for the bar), intelligent stereo landscaping and solid Philips pressing.
Vinyl: Vertigo 6360 939
1970’s Vertigo titles feature eye-catching cover art, most unlaminated matt covers which often show ring-wear and tear, bared corners and seams. Removing historical price stickers tends to lift the artwork.
The iconic “small swirl” Vertigo original label is a delight to watch spinning on the turntable, whisks you away to the era of 60’s geometric op-art.
Philips replaced the swirl label in 1973 with the Roger Dean design “Spaceships” label. Collectors make a big deal out of Vertigo vs Spaceships, effectively common engineering and production, but if you are a collector, sentiment rules, the original pre-73 titles must be Vertigo swirl.
The matrix shows the familiar format and codes of Philips pressings in the runout (420=UK).
Gatefold:
Vertigo Inner Sleeve
Isn’t it cute? Unfortunately the sleeve inner lining is polythene, infamous for its tendency to bond with vinyl, which then contaminates the stylus tip, best kept away from the disc itself. But it’s a beautiful artefact.
Harry’s Place
1970-75, Montreux and Jazz Expo, Harry was there, and captured the Nucleus boys in action:
Brian Smith Jazz Expo 1970
Chris Spedding Jazz Expo 1970
Jeff Clyne Montreux 1970
Ian Carr Montreux 1970
Karl Jenkins Montreux 1970
John Marshall Montreux 1970
Kenny Wheeler Montreux 1975
Harry Beckett Montreux 1971
Photo-credits ©Harry M
Collector’s Corner
The Vertigo label was launched by Philips in 1969, to specialise in progressive rock against rival labels Harvest (EMI) and Deram (Decca). Nucleus remained one of their feature artists for five years, along side hard-core prog-rockers Black Sabbath, Uriah Heep, and jazz-leaning spelling challenge Colosseum. At the outset Nucleus was awarded first prize as Best European Band at Montreux, the unhappy fruit of which is a double album from Gearbox, featuring the extended yodelling of Leon Thomas, on leave from Pharoah Sanders. Odleoldoldeeaeoo. Played just the once, and quietly put away. Sorry Leon, not today. Or indeed, any day.
Vertigo’s Nucleus titles are quite hard to come by, and expensive – in three figures – when in top condition, which is not often. In 1970, looking after vinyl had yet to catch on.
The complete collection of eight Vertigo Nucleus recordings (1970-75) have recently been reissued by Be With Records, “remastered from original master tapes” held by Universal Music Group. These are a good inexpensive way into the Nucleus discography if you feel so inclined, though personally I favour original Vertigo pressings.
Nucleus Vertigo discography in chronological release order:
Reissue quality? Judge for yourself, for comparison, the selected track Torso from the remastered BeWith 2023 reissue of Solar Plexus:
Selection: Torso (remastered 2023)
https://londonjazzcollector.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/nucleus_torso_solar-plexus_1970-be-with-records-reissue-2023.mp3. . .
Jacket/ gatefold are facsimile Vertigo original artwork, little point in reproducing them here, but the labels are BeWith’s own design.
EDUCATION SUPPLEMENT: “Mastered from the Original Tapes” .
What is “the original tape”? A question not often asked by the vinyl community, who merely ask “is it from the original tapes”? The question is given more attention by HiFi tape enthusiasts – who pay a lot to collect tapes, and have to grapple with the problem of authenticity, generation-drop, and availability.
The first incarnation of recorded music is the original Session Tape. This contains material which will be discarded in preparing the final master mix tape: leader talking, false starts, abandoned takes, alternative takes, and of course the takes selected for the final album. Only rarely will the Session Tape be “The Original Tape” in question.
The session may be recorded on half-inch tape at 30ips, or any other speed and tape variety in studio use. In their raw state, the chosen takes will still need additional processing to meet the sonic constraints of the vinyl format.
The vinyl production process begins with cutting the acetate, which necessitates a Master Mix Tape source. This tape contains the final tracks in the agreed sequence, mixed down to a single two-track tape at a minimum of 15 inches per second, possibly compiled from single or multi-track session tapes, possibly recorded at various times and places. For vinyl preparation, it’s essential to equalize the track volumes and apply limiting/compression to manage excess bass frequencies which could cause the stylus to skip out of the groove. Additionally, any excessive vocal sibilance in the high-end frequency range must be addressed, along with other potential adjustments like frequency boosts, often around 10kHz. Typically, the master mix tape is created by splicing together several tape segments into one continuous reel.
The Master Mix Tape is considered the First Generation Tape, the sonic image that will be cut onto the vinyl acetate. It will generally never leave the studio/ label archive. Each play of the Master Mix Tape potentially degrades it and generally it is used very sparingly. It will usually itself have a safety, back up copy, and today, that safety copy may be in better condition than its original first generation parent.
For a variety of purposes, a working copy of the Master Mix Tape is made, a second generation copy, referred to as a Production Copy tape. This could be the source for cutting the original acetate, and the source from which Distribution Copies are made, copies which can be sent to other US plants for local manufacture, and for overseas distribution.
These Distribution Copies are considered a third generation tape: a copy of the Production Copy of the Master Tape Mix. As a practical example, a third generation distribution copy will have been sent by Liberty to its West Coast subsidiary Research Craft, destined to be the source for local acetate mastering for the West Coast market. Likewise, a distribution copy would be sent overseas for local album manufacture in Europe or Japan.
” analog tapes do not like to be copied to another analog tape“ (RVG)
A loss of fidelity/quality occurs when ever a tape is copied to another tape – information is lost in copying, and using a distribution copy tape for acetate cutting introduces potential mismatch in playback equipment, and different mastering decisions made by location cutting engineers. Which is why in my experience the US original pressings sound better than any overseas pressing, by a margin which sometimes may be quite small, but more often, quite large.
On the Hoffperson Forum it is a frequent thread as to whether pressings by x y or z plant are any good. Setting aside manufacturing defects like non-fill or dishing, the pressing plant tends to get the blame for any sonic shortcomings, wherever in the distribution chain they originate. Or they sound great to me
Tape Collector’s lament
Hi Fi tape enthusiasts will tell you tape is sonic nirvana compared to downstream formats like vinyl and CD. And reluctantly I have to agree. However tapes for sale can have a shady pedigree, may be third or fourth generation copies, or of unknown generation, “friend-copies”, Audio Club copies, high-speed duplicated commercial copies, or have a digitised source, with associated cut-offs and boosts, optimised for streaming services and earbuds. And you thought it was difficult to source “original vinyl”, tape enthusiasts ending buying a master mix tape of a band no-one has heard of, simply for the “sound quality”, because at least it’s available.
Are we any the wiser?
The marketing for modern audiophile vinyl reissues often fails to adequately describe what constitutes the “original tapes.” When Japan’s Disc Union sent Kevin Gray pre-mastered hi-res digital files for the DBLP Series, digitised from Blue Note copy tapes held in Japan, what exactly were those tapes, clearly not the Master Tape Mixes.
It’s reassuring to see major players like Craft and Tone Poet increasingly specify when they are cutting from a high-resolution (24-bit/192kHz) digital copy of “the original tapes,” although the exact position of these originals in the tape generation hierarchy remains unclear. It might be better for us to remain unaware, or perhaps they themselves are unsure. Nonetheless, this move towards greater transparency is a step forward, and to my ears, the results sound good, even if they may not match the original when available.
I am not an engineer, and if I have got any of this wrong , happy to be corrected.
LJC