Ginger Baker’s Air Force is a jazz-rock fusion supergroup led by drummer Ginger Baker. (More from Wikipedia)
Meanwhile, Ginger Baker was putting together a supergroup and a double album of his own. Ginger Baker’s Air Force – described in Wikipedia as a rock-jazz fusion band – was organized from the ashes of Blind Faith and featured the other three musicians in the band besides Eric Clapton: Ginger Baker (drums, percussion and vocals), Stevie Winwood (organ and vocals), and Rick Grech (violin and bass guitar). Others on hand in the 10-piece band include Baker’s former bandmate Graham Bond, Denny Laine (one of the original members of the Moody Blues – he sang lead on their early hit “Go Now” – and later a key member of Paul McCartney and Wings), Chris Wood (another founding member of Traffic), and Wood’s wife Jeanette Jacobs (previously in the New York band the Cake).
Billed as the first left-handed album (the gatefold album cover had the front cover printed on what was normally the back, though the album art was so extreme that it was a little hard to tell the difference), Ginger Baker’s Air Force was released in March 1970. In the 4½ star review of the album in Allmusic, Bruce Eder raves: “For a change, the late 1960s yielded up a supergroup that lived up to its hype and then some. Ginger Baker’s Air Force was recorded live at Royal Albert Hall in January of 1970 – in fact, this may be the best-sounding live album ever to come out of that notoriously difficult venue – at a show that must have been a wonder to watch, as the ten-piece band blazed away in sheets of sound, projected delicate flute parts behind multi-layered African percussion, or built their songs up Bolero-like, out of rhythms from a single instrument into huge jazz-cum-R&B crescendos. Considering that this was only their second gig, the group sounds astonishingly tight, which greatly reduces the level of self-indulgence that one would expect to find on an album where five of the eight tracks run in excess of ten minutes.”
The band’s second album, Ginger Baker’s Air Force 2 came out at the end of 1970 and had a different group of musicians. This album too is well regarded in Allmusic and receives 4 stars.
(May 2014)
