National Health: Playtime

Alan Gowen and Dave Stewart were among the finest and most innovative keyboardists of the 70’s and early 80’s. However, in 1981 Alan Gowen succumbed to a bout with leukemia and Stewart’s recorded output has been spotty at best, while Greaves, Pyle and Miller have surged onward, performing among various highly touted aggregations that generally reside somewhere in the fusion, jazz or progressive/experimental rock genres.

Basically, Playtime should be deemed essential listening for most progressive rock enthusiasts! On this release, the band explores modern jazz motifs in concert with a bevy of twists, turns and sprightly soloing, which is evident from the onset of the fifteen-minute opener, titled “Flanagan’s People”.

Guitarist Alain Eckert adds a supplementary edge while joining the ensemble and working alongside Phil Miller on three of these works, as the duo engages in a furious electric guitar attack on “Dreams Wide Awake”. Here, Gowen effectively comps and consistently reinvents the primary theme via yearning lines and limber soloing while toggling between synths and electric piano.

The musicians dabble with free jazz on “Rhubarb Jam”; whereby, Gowen renders a memorably melodic and thoroughly hypnotic ostinato in support of Greaves’ booming fuzz bass soloing on “Play Time”. – The keyboardist also pursues raucous blues/rock propositions in conjunction with the rhythm section’s maddening pulse on the burner and final track, “Squarer For Maude Part 2”.

No doubt, National Health was a great outfit! Overall, Playtime finds the ensemble performing with unrelenting urgency amid whimsical themes, alluring melodies and complex rhythmic structures as the folks at “Cuneiform” have dutifully unearthed a radiant gem from the recent past. Recommended!

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Cuneiform Records

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