The Live Session
Spike Robinson Quartet
Recorded ca. 1974 by Dick Patterson, likely at The Lost Knight Lounge, Boulder, CO.
In any music, there is elegant balance to be found between the familiar and the surprise. An improvised line, or unexpected turns in an arrangement, bring a listener the joy of again “discovering” a familiar song.
The interplay of familiarity is plain to hear in
Recorded ca. 1974 by Dick Patterson, likely at The Lost Knight Lounge, Boulder, CO.
In any music, there is elegant balance to be found between the familiar and the surprise. An improvised line, or unexpected turns in an arrangement, bring a listener the joy of again “discovering” a familiar song.
The interplay of familiarity is plain to hear in Spike Robinson’s working group of the early-mid 1970s. The group were good friends, and, in playing their repertoire a lot together, achieved a certain relaxed freedom of melodicism, interplay, and swing. The surprises of improvisation are strangely easier to find when the setting is comfortable.
Because record companies did not offer Spike the chance to record with this group at the time, our father decided to document what they played live. The setup was familiar: they used the club during off-hours for a quiet setting to record (sometimes you can hear a person working in the background).
The performances were like their sets. Three sets of music were recorded in an afternoon; everything was first takes, with no stopping or editing. The order presented here is just as they played it.
The resulting interplay of the group flows in a way that is difficult to achieve in a recording studio with time pressures. Spike sounds musically at home, wearing comfortable slippers, perhaps at his melodic best. Dale’s musical choices have an ideal and subtle logic; Dick and Derryl’s swing connects magnetically. Most of all, the group speaks in an unburdened voice, from the bebop flow of “Groovin’ High” to the lyricism of “Everything Happens to Me.”.
We hope you enjoy hearing this genuine piece of the “sound of surprise” this well-loved quartet created.
Mark and Craig Patterson