Forgotten Sons
Glass
Nigel Camilleri
A Brief History
Yet another band to grace the pages of the Forgotten Sons series whose music has only seen the light of day in the last year or so: American progressive trio Glass. The band first existed in the early seventies and originated from the Pacific Northwest. It seems that the band played quite an extensive number of concerts, and they made a name for themselves on the college and coffee house circuit playing a musical style very similar to what Emerson, Lake and Palmer were creating.
As often happens with such bands, they tend to go unnoticed by record labels with the resultant effect that their music tends not to be released and sometimes discarded. Luckily, Glass held onto their tapes and now have been able to release them in a double CD format, much to the pleasure of progressive rock fans.
First of all, the main fulcrum of the band was the Sherman brothers Greg and Jeff. Both seemed to have been involved in the songwriting duties with Greg playing the keyboard/piano/mellotron parts and Jeff concentrating on the guitar/bass and sometimes piano parts. The remaining link in the band was the drummer, a duty shared by two musicians during the Glass career, Jerry Cook and Paul Black.
The band's earliest recording that seems to exist is from 1972, suggesting that the band started their career together around that time. A career that ran till 1978. The first line-up has Jerry Cook playing with the band till roughly 1975. Throughout this time, the band were trying hard to secure a record contract, with Jeff Sherman even going to England, birthplace of the musical style the band played, and even secured contacts with Sean Murphy, manager of Soft Machine, and David Apps of Evolution Management, both of whom expressed interest in the band.
However, on his return to the States, he found that Cook had suddenly left the band. This was the beginning of the end of Glass, just when all pieces seemed to be falling into place for them! The replacement for Cook was Paul Black, no easy feat when one realises that Cook had been with the band since its inception. Black was a close friend of the band and already knew the parts, thus making the transition somewhat smoother, though his style of playing had a more rock orientated and hard hitting approach, something which affected the band's style of playing.
However, the end of the seventies was a hostile climate to any band that played progressive rock and only the strongest were likely to survive. A band with no record contract such as Glass was unlikely to ride the storm and the late seventies saw the band move to New York City in a last ditch attempt to revive their career. When all else failed, the band disbanded.
That is until the late nineteen nineties. In 1999, the original members decided that the name of Glass could be resurrected once again especially with the rekindling of interest in the progressive rock scene. The result was the CD No Stranger To The Skies, released on Relentless Pursuit Records (RD4128), which included both studio and live material from the seventies, material that till then had never seen the light of day.
Furthermore, on 19 May 2001 a reunion concert was held, plus an appearance at the first ProgWest Festival alongside bands such as Maximum Indifference and Djam Karet. Also in the pipeline is the release of further unissued material from the seventies related to Glass as well as possible new recordings.
If you didn't catch them the first time around, you might just do so this time!
Glass — No Stranger To The Skies
CD 2: The Live Recordings: Broken Oars: Awakening (Main Theme) / Realization / Fear / Childhood & Reflection (including Acoustic Guitar Solo on Spirit Lake and Timpani solo) / Final Realization / Acceptance (Reprise of Main Theme) (29:56), Changer (10:54), Home (2:55), Patrice Mersault's Dream (12:29)
Nigel Camilleri
Line-up: Jeff Sherman - electric and acoustic guitars, electric bass guitars, Fender-Rhodes piano, Moog Taurus bass pedals, vocals; Jerry Cook - drums, tunable concert timpani, Moog drums, Mini-Moog synthesizer, percussion, gong (on all tracks except CD 2 Track 7); Greg Sherman - acoustic and electric pianos, Hohner clavinet, ARP and Oberheim synthesizers, Mellotron, Hammond organ, custom electronic; Paul Black - drums and percussion on CD 2 Track 7.
All Tracks composed by Jeff and Greg Sherman
A double CD of unreleased material spanning four years of recordings and gigs, No Stranger To The Skies, once again underlines the tragedy of "modern" music whereby bands who demonstrate an amount of promise still fail to get the necessary contacts and contracts and make it into the big league.
Strangely enough, the earliest material from the band's repertoire is not a studio recording but the live opus Broken Oars, which in itself is further subdivided into six sections. Recorded 6 and 7 February 1973 at the Port Townsend High School Auditorium. The track is a perfect example of the bombastic influence by bands such as Emerson Lake & Palmer on this trio of musicians.
The introductory theme, Awakening, builds up in a slow crescendo to then break out with timpani rolls into Realization which sets the centre stage for what the band were capable of. The interplay between the keyboards/organ and drums is incredible while the bass guitar shoulders the responsibility of bearing the framework of the track. Fear introduces a number of new concepts with the group moving away from the straight forward power trio format on previous tracks.
The piano takes up a more prominent role allowing for excursions into relatively new territory as well as adding a new dimension to the band's sound. Furthermore, it is on this track that we get a glimpse of the band's ability to portray different shades of musical light, something which they build upon on Childhood's Reflection with the acoustic guitar solo which comes as a breather after the heavy organ work that preceded this track. Final Realization rekindles the power trio format with some heavy doshing with the epic track closing off with a reprise of the main theme in Acceptance.
The final two tracks from the 1973 period are Home and Patrice Mersault's Dream, both of which were recorded between 30 June and 2 July, at The Arcadia Barn in Port Townsend, Washington. Home is one of the more moving pieces on the album with its acoustic guitar work, accompanied by what was then the staple mate of any progressive band, the Mellotron. Patrice Mersault's Dream takes its name from the main character in The Stranger by Albert Camus and was the first Glass recording to feature a two-keyboard sound. Being a lengthy piece of material, the track allows the band to show that they were capable of creating variations on a theme and not just stick to one particular tune and play it out endlessly for the whole of the track. The time signatures are continuously shifting due to some nifty drum playing by Jerry Cook, while the alternation between keyboardists adds to the dramatic essence of the track.
The next recording session to make its appearance on the album comes from the period between 17 February and 5 March 1975 and involved the following tracks: Give The Man A Hand, Domino and The Myopic Stream. The first can be considered to be just one theme that is played out over and over again with slight variations in key, while Domino tends to start off in a rather similar fashion. However, there is one determining difference between the two tracks. Whereas the former tended to have little in terms of variation, the introduction of a guitar, namely Jeff Sherman's Fender Stratocaster, adds a totally new dimension to the band's musical style. Whereas the keyboard was the dominant instrument resulting in a fairly monotonous sound, this time round the band could expand their sonic effects.
A major influence on Jeff Sherman at the time of writing this track was Dave Brubeck's Time Out album and the style of playing with a strong jazz tinge can be felt throughout the track. The final track from this particular recording session is The Myopic Stream, which features a captivating piano introduction which forms the main fulcrum of all the music on this particular track.
There is some exquisite rhythm work both from the drums and bass, though the main reason why this track is one of my favourites from this album, is the sharp contrast that the band manage to obtain between the relatively mellow piano interludes and more power charged full-blown trio sections.
On 26 and 27 July that same year (1975), the band entered the studio with Changer emerging from those sessions. This time round, there was also a change in line-up with Paul Black taking over the drum stool. As has already been mentioned, the inclusion of Black within the lineup also brought in a more direct and hard hitting rock influenced approach. Thus, Changer is also one of the heaver tracks on the album with some pounding driving drums played out, a sharp contrast to the relatively more technical and delicate material the band were originally playing.
The next recording session to be included on this album occurred on 17 August 1977 at Kaye-Smith recording studio in Seattle, Washington. This resulted in the track For Ursula Major And Sirus The Dog Star. Another aspect to note is the inclusion of Jerry Cook, once again behind the drum kit. From what is written on the liner notes, it seems that the band felt that they would have to soon call it a day and felt that they had to create one last masterpiece, ie: go out with a bang!
This track is possibly a culmination of all their musical endeavours and brings together all the influences and trademark sounds that Glass had accumulated throughout the years. It features just about everything that one could expect from this trio with delightful solos on both piano and keyboards as well as some delightful interchanging between the two keyboardists. The culmination and highlight of the track is the final Third Movement which features a moving crescendo, a fitting epitaph to this band.
The track I have left for last is the very first and title-track on this compilation, No Stranger To The Skies. The reason for this is that the track itself was worked on over a period of three years in three different recording sessions (1975 - 1978). The final session also features both Jerry Cook and Paul Black playing together, and Jeff Sherman is absent from the line-up. The track in itself is not the most ground-breaking of pieces on the album, but is most important in its historical context.
The music that is played on the album cannot be considered to have dated extremely well as has happened to many of the power trios from the seventies era. On the other hand, should you be a fan of this style of music, especially of instrumental tracks from bands such as ELP and Triumvirat, then this album should make a fascinating listen and valid addition to your musical collection.
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Related Websites
Updated November 2024.
At the time this article was published (December 2001), there was no official Glass website. However, the Relentless Pursuit Records website already existed, and it still does at the time of this update (2024). Relentless released the band's (at that time, only) CD, and has a section dedicated to the band.
There are also possible links to various sites that could provide further information on the band.
Not existing in 2001, but now the band are on Facebook. The band is also on ReverbNation.
Jeff Sherman also has his own Facebook page.
Most importantly, the band have set up a Bandcamp page with more than 30 albums! This includes the band's very first recordings (June 1969!), the last gig in 1978, new music, and many live recordings.