Eric Kloss - Bodies' Warmth

Eric Kloss - Bodies' Warmth
Muse 5077, 1975

1 Lady
2 Joni
3 Bodies' Warmth
4 Scarborough Fair
5 Mystique
6 Headin' Out

Eric Kloss - Sax ; Barry Miles - Keyboards; Vic Juris - Guitar; Harvie Swartz - Bass; Terry Silverlight - Drums

I can remember a time in my life when I though this was the hippest music I had ever heard. What a difference..... The album is still quite good (dare I use the phrase 'a seminal work of fusion?) but I have to admit it sounds dated at times and I always liked Barry Miles acoustic piano best even though he was one of the most interesting electric keyboard players ever.

This album should probably be titled 'Prodigies' as three quarters of the band were indeed prodigies in every sense of the word. Barry Miles was playing professional gigs with established stars like Woody Herman at 9 years old! He was a drummer then and still used his family name Silverlight (why in the world would you change THAT?) but later morphed into a pianist with blinding chops. His little brother Terry (some 15 years his junior if I remember right) took over the drumming in the family and he was a recorded pro at 12. Eric Kloss took until the ancient age of 15 or 16 to sign his first Prestige contract but he had been gigging professionally since 12 when he took the stage with Sonny Stitt! Miles may well have been the guy who first coined the term Fusion; he was composing, playing and writing about it at Princeton in 1964! Kind of puts him way up at the front of the curve ehh?

A little dated in places to be sure and why in the world they ever decided to play Scarborough Fair will be for others to figure out - surely there was SOME better Pop vehicle for sales. This was a frequent working band for Eric, unlike the other configurations featured on his Muse dates.