Rare Bird

When they recorded their third album, Rare Bird had recently undergone some personnel changes that had a serious effect on the band's musical direction. One of the band's two keyboardists, founding member and primary songwriter Graham Field, had left, marking an end to the group's nearly unique organ-electric piano-drums-vocals lineup. Rather than replace him with another organist, the group added guitarist/second lead vocalist Ced Curtis, with singer Steve Gould taking up guitars as well…

Rare Bird came together in October 1969 when organist Graham Field, keyboardist Dave Kaffinetti, drummer Mark Ashton, and vocalist Steve Gould envisioned a two-keyboard rock sound without guitars. They released their debut before the end of the year, featuring the minor radio hit "Sympathy." The next year they released As Your Mind Flies By, a dark and heavier album that put further emphasis on Gould's melodramatic singing style…

'Born Again' is a great ROCK album, but there really isn't much 'progressive' about it - Graeme Field took the prog idealism along with him when he left Rare Bird after the exciting album 'As Your Mind Flies By'. That said, the songs here are very tight, undeniably well arranged, performed, and sound fantastic…

This CD released for the first time the soundtrack of two of Charlie Parker's appearances on television. Some of the music and talking is trivial and loose but a few of the performances are quite unique and Bird is heard with a variety of intriguing groups. From 1949 Parker plays a fine version of "Lover" and helps trumpeter Shorty Sherock on "I Can't Get Started" but is drowned out by Sidney Bechet on an uptempo blues. From 1952 Bird gets featured on "Anthropology" and participates in a "Bop vs. Dixieland" blues with trumpeters Max Kaminsky and Miles Davis, trombonists Kai Winding and Will Bradley and clarinetist Joe Marsala; everyone gets to solo. This interesting CD concludes with Bird in fine form in 1954 with a quintet that also includes trumpeter Herb Pomeroy, material not available elsewhere.

Essential: a masterpiece of progressive rock music.
Featuring "Down On The Floor"
'As Your Mind Flies By' is the 2nd album by Rare Bird, and what an album it is. In a word - MAGNIFICENT !!

Essential: a masterpiece of progressive rock music.
A Mini-masterpiece!
Rare Bird's fab four Graham Field, Dave Kaffinetti, Steve Gould and Mark Ashton had created their own distinct sound using keyboards, bass and drums but without, unusually for the time, electric guitars.