Entourage: Ceremony of Dreams: Studio Sessions & Outtakes, 1972-1977
Tompkins Square

Just when I start to think I've acquired a fairly decent perspective on progressive music and its history, along comes something to remind me my grasp is incomplete at best. The point's made by this triple-CD set of thirty unreleased tracks from The Entourage Music and Theatre Ensemble's archives, a group I'll confess I hadn't heard of until recently (a single-LP version of the release in condensed form is also available). If Entourage (used henceforth for simplicity's sake) isn't better known, it could be because it was simply ahead of its time; it's not uncommon for today's groups to blend folk, classical, jazz, ambient, minimalism, and world genres, but such a move was hardly standard practice four decades ago. It's also perhaps explained by the group's modest output—a mere two albums on Moses Asch's Folkways imprint, a self-titled set in 1973 and The Neptune Collection three years later—and infrequent live performances, the latter often multi-sensory spectacles replete with dancers and lighting effects.

Formed by soprano saxophonist-and-keyboardist Joe Clark in Baltimore in 1970, group members included (not necessarily at the same time): guitarists Wall Matthews and Orin Smith; violist Rusty Clark; bassists Pete Kessler and Terry Plumeri; and drummers Eugene Mauro and Michael Smith; voice contributions from Cindy Alper, Laurie Cameron, Wendy Matthews, Martha Moore, and Jay Clayton also appear on the release. There were actually three iterations of the band, the first an early jazz-fusion outfit the founder formed for a weekly Baltimore club date and the second the trio Joe created with drummer Smith and violist Clark that appears on the 1973 recording; the third version, which included Matthews and Plumeri, is the one predominantly featured on the triple-CD set.

Entourage was, in short, one of those eclectic and daringly forward-thinking outfits that thought nothing of working finger cymbals, temple bells, dulcimer, xylophone, and kalimba into its chamber-like arrangements. Genre lines were spiritedly criss-crossed in a heady brew that suggests Oregon, Terry Riley, and Weather Report (the early ‘70s incarnation that released I Sing The Body Electric and Sweetnighter) as kindred spirits—not bad company to be in. Over the course of its travels, Entourage scored the film Ceremony of Dreams for NETV and created the music for the ballet Cleopatra for the Royal Danish Ballet before calling it a day in 1978. The group re-entered the public sphere when Keiran Hebden wove an unlicensed sample of “Neptune Rising” into his 2003 Four Tet single “She Moves She,” which prompted a copyright settlement that brought Entourage more remuneration than its original recordings.

To these ears, it's the first disc that's the strongest, particularly in how effectively its ten tracks capture the bold, genre-defying fusion at which the group excelled. Buoyed by an insistent acoustic piano vamp, “Journey by Water” artfully weds liquid electric guitar phrases with a dramatic thematic statement by viola and percussion. Turbulent by comparison, “Temple of Whales” positions wailing soprano sax alongside aggressive snares-and-cymbals accompaniment, while the brief “Tears” plays like a quasi-orchestral meditation. On the first of three versions of the dreamily seductive “The Shores of God,” Plumeri's bass exhibits a Pastorius-like forcefulness, his playing matched in conviction by soprano sax, viola, and bowed bass musings. Though it's hardly the only time it occurs on the set, the group's deft integration of formal structure and improv-based exploration is highlighted wonderfully in the performance of Orin Smith's ballad “Necrophelia” and specifically in the way the sax, bass, guitar, and percussion parts flow so seamlessly together. Entourage's pastoral-folk side moves to the fore during “Sleazy Sue (Love Duet 1 From Cleopatra)” in the interplay between the acoustic fingerpicking and sweetly rustic viola; some serious snake-charming, on the other hand, arises during “Outer Tiger (Street Scene From Cleopatra)” when soprano sax engages feverishly with hand percussion and congas.

Outtakes from Neptune's Rising constitute a large share of the second disc, which often upholds the quality level of the first. Joe Clark's wedding of piano and bells in the radiant “Euphoric Bells” starts things off strongly, while the viola-soprano-sax-acoustic guitar combination in Rusty Clark's “The Two Snails Who Went to the Funeral of a Dead Leaf” is transporting in the best sense of the word; such material speaks most highly of the distinctive musical terrain Entourage was exploring. During “Neptune Rising,” soprano sax and viola unite to voice its theme, a move Entourage also uses to memorable effect during “King's Birdcage.” The disc's momentum slows, however, when not one but two nine-minute versions of “Military Music 2” are included.

The final third presents more music from the ballet score plus material apparently recorded for an intended third album. The acoustic guitar-soprano sax-viola combo is again effective, this time during “Millbrook,” and the group's Eastern-leaning bent is effectively realized in the extended reverie “Days,” the leader's long sax lines here contrasting conspicuously when paired with rapid fingerpicking. Even if the momentum again slows when a “Caesar and Cleopatra” love duet appears that might have been better at half the length, the oft-intimate character of the stripped-down arrangements (e.g., the early version of “Snails”) makes up for it.

April 2018