Daryl Way's Wolf PV046
Daryl Way's Wolf- Cadenza The Complete Recordings 1973 – 1974
Progressive Voyages Review PV047
When I was a teenager, I used to spend many hours in record shops, looking through the racks of the albums there, it was in places like Reddingtons Rare Records in Moor Street Birmingham that I found many records that are still my favourites today some 52 years later.
In those sessions of rifling through the racks I would often come across certain albums and would never give them a second thought, of course nowadays I am very receptive at acquainting myself with many of these albums especially when they have been afforded the love and care they are due by the great folks at Esoteric/Cherry Red label. Who love and careful treatment of many overlooked classic albums has brought these records the respect that they missed when they were released.
Over the years I have been fortunate enough to have been able to review many such titles, such as the excellent Hardin and York set, The Colosseum box set and more recently the wonderful After The Fire collection.
What all these releases share in common is the dedication and diligence of the compilers in being able to find hitherto tracks and performances that they can add to these sets to give a complete picture of an acts musical legacy, This is certainly the case here, Daryl Way's Wolf were only a fairly short-lived group from it came two titans of progressive rock in the form of Ian Mosely who later went on to join Marillion and John Etheridge who replaced Alan Holdsworth in Soft Machine, both are still in these bands nearly 50 years later.
Daryl Way of course was the original violinist in Curved Air, He formed Wolf upon leaving Curved Air, and after wolf had reached it end he once again joined forces with his old Curved Air colleague Francis Monkman in the revived Curved Air.
Wolf we’re in-between these projects and in their time, they never really managed to make a huge impression on the record buying public, Which is why some 45 years on from those days we can re acquaint ourselves with the band and see how revolutionary they were.
Wolf only released 3 full albums, Danish Lupus and Saturation Point ( both from 1973) and Night Music (1974) this set is bolstered by the addition of ten bonus tracks including a 5 song BBC In Concert set and single and B sides and as usual with Cherry Red and insightful and informative booklet detailed the story of the band.
Musically speaking these albums are mostly progressive rock with classical influences and tending towards Jazz Rock and fusion. An area which they were well equipped for with the astoundingly fluid fusion playing of John Etheridge especially being very prominent indeed. Little wonder why Soft Machine snapped him up on Alan Holdsworth’s recommendation to replace him when he (Alan decided to jump ship after the bundles Album and subsequent tour.
Canis Lupus (Latin for wolf) has a strong fusion tone to it, with lots of jazzy fills and superb drumming from Ian Mosely and sturdy bass play from Dek Messecar creating a good platform for both Way and Etheridge to play off for their solo’s, Daryl also provides synthesiser on this album opening track The Void us very impressive as is the instrumental cadenza where John Etheridge delivers a masterclass in “comping “ a Jazz term for improvising on a track, in fact each member has a chance to shine on this track it even includes a drum solo from Ian Mosely along with lots of fleet fingered playing from John whilst Daryl’s synths soar over everything, making a great impression and sound.
The BBC In Concert element is also very good and shows that this band had tremendous promise that sadly they were unable to translate into record sales, as is often the case with a plethora of mid league bands that were about in the 1970’s, there were loads of these bands that had both imagination along with lots of promise like No Dice and Dirty trick both of whom released good albums that need revisitation.
The other good thing about the BBC show is that you get to experience what a Wolf concert must have looked and sounded like in an unaltered unedited form, Wolf could certainly deliver in concert. It is a great bonus for the set with strong versions of the album tracks like Cadenza, McDonald’s Lament and Isolation Waltz.
Second album Saturation Point is also impressive in that the fusion element takes more prominence wh8ch really makes the music come alive as it does on opening cut The Ache where Daryl’s violin takes centre stage whilst everyone else is also 0laying w8ldly all around him, next track is Two Sisters which has a very upbeat sound to it, along with some powerful guitar playing and Daryl’s violin playing up a storm and a strong muscular bass line. The material on this second album benefits from the time the ground have spent tour8ng as the material is better as a result. Toy Symphony especially with its longer track time allows for more improvisation to happen, also the bass is especially strong on this track and the use of Fuzz on the bass sounds really good.
Third album Night Music introduced a new singer in John Hodgkinson formerly of Jazz Rock band If, his voice was introduced to strengthen the band and provide a visual focal point for the group, which Daryl felt was lacking at that point. Despite a strong showing on the Night Music album, sadly whilst his presence makes an impact for Wolf it was for Daryl too little progress was l
being made. So when in 1974 Francis Monkman offered a position in a reformed Curved Air Daryl decided to throw his lot into that meaning the effective end of Wolf, in retrospect, Wolf had much to offer and had they continued had the strong possibility of breaking through to a wider audience, sadly we will never really know
Meanwhile this set gathers together everything that was recorded in one handy box set of interesting Jazz fusion style music.
Of the 3 albums Saturation point is the best, whilst Canis Lupus has some fine points and Night Music is generally strong in reality there is a whole load to appreciate here especially for jazz Rock fans
Info here: Darryl Way’s Wolf: Cadenza – The Complete Recordings, 3CD Box Set https://share.google/kH8zJCq5haSYJ2lZN
Author John Wenlock-Smith