Nucleus Out Of The Long Dark

In 1998, BGO Records released Out of the Long Dark/Old Heartland, which contained two complete albums - Out of the Long Dark (1979, originally released on Capitol) and Old Heartland (1988, originally released on MMC) - by Ian Carr on one compact disc.

If Soft Machine was a rock group that veered towards jazz rock, Nucleus can be seen as a jazz group that veered towards jazz rock, as most musicians were clearly jazz musicians with the notable exception of Chris Spedding (yes, Mr. motocycle-punk/Chameleon-man of rock). If a comparison of those two groups can be made, it is also obvious that Nucleus became a nursing ground for those musicians before joining Soft Machine (around ten musicians did the transfer). They were signed on the famous progressive Vertigo label and the first two superb artwork album sleeves were designed by Roger Dean…

Out of the Afternoon is a splendid sounding 1962 set from the Roy Haynes Quartet - which, at the time, consisted of Haynes, Henry Grimes on bass, Tommy Flanagan on piano, and Roland Kirk on saxes, manzello, stritch, and flutes. The album is a delightful mix of techniques in arrangement and performance, with all of the musicians delivering terrific work. Haynes' drumming is absolutely wonderful here, lightly dancing around the other instruments; Flanagan's piano playing is equally light and delicate; Grimes' bass work is outstanding (during "Raoul" you have a chance to hear one of the few bowed bass solos on records of that era); and there's no more to be said about Kirk's sax and flute work that hasn't been said a hundred times, apart from the fact that the flute solos on "Snap Crackle" help this cut emerge as particularly outstanding.