Life's Great Unfolding

Not bad at all. Not exactly brilliant either, but this recorded free-form "freak-out" from 1967 (originally released on New York City's Audio Fidelity label) is not only not terrible, but surprisingly pretty OK for stretches, especially considering the typical quality of these types of had-to-be-there period curios that purport to blow your mind with an aural approximation of an acid trip. This one actually manages to be something approaching far out, man, even at its most half-baked. Whether How to Blow Your Mind and Have a Freakout Party was, in fact, created as a "head" LP by practicing heads (a certain David Dalton is listed as the Unfolding's presiding mastermind - no word in the liner notes if this is the same Dalton who was a pioneering rock scribe and founding editor of Rolling Stone), or as an exploitation of same by a faceless assemblage of session musicians is really anyone's guess…

The name of the group might be immodest, but the combination of pianist Hank Jones, bassist Buster Williams and drummer Tony Williams lives up to its billing. Originally cut for the Japanese East Wind label and last available domestically as an Inner City LP, this swinging but unsurprising session features boppish interpretations of six jazz standards including "Love for Sale," "Secret Love," and "Autumn Leaves."

1986's Shot in the Dark was Great White's sophomore album and major-label debut through Capitol, having attracted enough positive press during its initial independent pressing to help the So-Cal hard rockers leave their spawning grounds in the music industry shallows in order to dive into its deeper waters, as it were. No, Great White still wasn't quite ready to challenge bigger fish in the American glam metal ocean like Ratt or Mötley Crüe just yet, but in promising tracks like "She Shakes Me" and "Run Away," the fledgling group dispensed prime examples of the muscular, distinctly blues-infused sound they would carry on finessing towards platinum status over the course of subsequent albums, Once Bitten… and …Twice Shy.