East Of Eden - Folk-jazz at the dawn of prog

In the chaotic, ever-evolving scene that at the end of the Sixties led to the birth of progressive rock (whose era conventionally opens with the first King Crimson album), many groups found it hard to stay afloat and leave their name in the history books, despite their often fundamental contribution to the development of this "new" sound. One of the most deserving of these hybrid outfits, suspended between the psychedelia of the recent past, jazz and the lure of "hard" rock, was the East Of Eden combo. Formed in 1967 in Bristol, they almost never had a stable lineup, and this was one of the reasons they never fully capitalized on their potential, especially as the decade turned.

The mind and arm of the group, and its only constant member until 1975, was violinist and multi-instrumentalist Dave Arbus (perhaps best known for playing the legendary closing solo on the Who's "Baba O'Riley"); alongside him in the original lineup were saxophonist Ron Caines, guitarist and singer Geoff Nicholson, drummer Dave Dufont and bassist Steve York, though the latter two would leave the group right after recording the first album.

This underlying instability, however, did not undermine the rock-solid cohesion of their sound: Mercator Projected (1969) is to be regarded as a true classic of this strange, as yet uncodified genre, indebted to the blues ("Northern Hemisphere", a driving guitar riff counterpointed by a splendid Arbus on violin) as much as to jazz and folk (the exotic litany of "Isadora"); its finest moments come on the wonderful second side, which opens with the melancholy ode of "Bathers", suspended in a mist of mellotron with vivid fragrance, a foray into the melodramatic that has nothing to envy in the best work of Fripp and co.

What's surprising from the very first listen to this album is its dense, kaleidoscopic range of colour, built into both the arrangements and the band's extraordinary versatility, which finds the right flavour for every track: take the incredible "Moth", a serenade with an epic gait, compressed into an incisive, powerful sound and driven by a great violin riff. Yet one shouldn't think the band took itself too seriously: comic sketches (admittedly of dubious and uncertain enjoyment) are scattered in the gaps between tracks, and the pleasure of a group jam session resurfaces on the closing "In The Stable Of The Sphinx", which impeccably seals an album that has every right to be called essential, further highlighting the always enjoyable virtuosity of the musicians involved in the project. The only real blemish is "Centaur Woman", which besides having a rather conventional structure, features a terrible, sloppy and interminable bass solo from York (later disowned even by its own author); but, given the otherwise high standard of the album, this small lapse can be forgiven.

Despite the somewhat clumsy heavy opening of "Have To Whack It Up", the following album, Snafu (1970), veers decisively towards free-jazz: a cauldron of stretched-out solos and off-the-cuff ideas, marked by heavy use of backward recording ("Xhorkom", "Habibi Baby"), this record scrambles the ingredients of the first album in a chaotic, jagged way. Between self-quotations ("Boehm Constrictor" is nothing but a reprise of the main theme of "In The Stable Of The Sphinx"), themes pilfered here and there (echoes of Mingus in "In The Snow For A Blow") and self-satisfied nonsense dressed up in avant-garde gloss ("Uno Transito Clapori"), the band's orientalizing stew pushes forward with great skill, though not without some strain; certainly the freshness of the debut is lost, along with perhaps much of the ideas that had made their sound so unique. It's curious that just as East Of Eden were churning out such a complex, magmatic work, they landed in the charts with the thoroughly pleasant folk violin of "Jig-A-Jig".

By 1971, the band had already ceased to exist: Dave Arbus alone found himself rebuilding a new line-up for what had by now become his personal project; meanwhile the contract with Deram had expired, and the label, looking to cash in on the success of "Jig-A-Jig", put out an enjoyable if ultimately pointless compilation bearing the name of the hit single. The line-up that signed to Harvest was entirely different from the one of just a year earlier: the violinist was now joined by Jim Roche on guitar, David Jack on bass and vocals, and Jeff Allen on drums. Though Arbus now tinges the tracks with bluegrass ("Wonderful Feeling"), and elsewhere pushes them towards a prototype of raga-rock in the vein of Quintessence ("To Mrs. V.", the most interesting track here), East Of Eden (1971) is basically a so-so guitar-driven hard-rock album, occasionally garnished with odd time signatures and funk cadences ("Here Comes The Day", "Crazy Daisy").

But rock bottom would be hit before the year was out, with the dreadful country-rock stew of New Leaf, which, by some twist of fate, also contains the best track of the whole period (the instrumental "Bradshaw The Bison Hunter").

Another Eden (1975) shows a few timid signs of recovery, built around an even more conventional but at least fairly well-crafted blues-rock ("Mandarin's Daughter"), even though Arbus, the last survivor of the original line-up, would leave the band after its release to go play with his friend Richard Sinclair (formerly the bassist of the legendary Caravan).

The new East Of Eden would go on to release three mediocre albums of danceable, vaguely disco-tinged rock'n'roll before splitting up on the eve of the new decade.

In 1996, three pillars of the original line-up — Ron Caines, Dave Arbus and Geoff Nicholson — got together to record a new album under the East Of Eden moniker; Kalipse (1997), however, is far from picking up the thread begun back in the 60s, turning out to be a rather lazy fusion record, barely rescued by the usual impeccable Arbus ("5th Amendment"), while the rhythm section, supplied by a mediocre bassist and an insipid drum machine, leaks at every seam.

Armadillo (2000) adds a bit of spice to the stew and proves to be a clever, enjoyable variation on the theme; more versatile than its predecessor, it offers a comprehensive view of Arbus and co.'s ability to range across different styles while keeping a unified feel: the arrangements, too, are noticeably more polished.

Graffito (2005) is the third, and probably last, album in the series, but it doesn't add much to the ingredients of its predecessor.

Whether they decide to carry on in their new fusion guise, or whether they've reached the end of their troubled recording career, Dave Arbus's East Of Eden will always rightly be remembered for their fabulous debut album more than for anything released afterwards. It's a real shame that adverse circumstances never allowed this band to become one of the leading names of 70s rock; it's even sadder that the East Of Eden name is now tied to mediocre records that have nothing to do with the masterpieces of old, which deserve to be rediscovered and reappraised.

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