The New York Rock and Roll Ensemble
Fillmore West
San Francisco, CA
19-22 February 1970
VG audience recording
Lineage: audience master > wav > flac
Mastering: None other than track indexing.
Track listing:
Disc 1 (49:14):
Jam >> The March 2:26
Gravedigger 7:16
Sing Lady Sing 3:01
City 3:28
Traditional Order 10:42
Suddenly 3:42
Aria [vocal version + trio version] 0:57
Noble Dame [end only] >> Mother Fortune 5:40
Sugar Eyes 3:14
Studeo Atlantis 8:19
The above timings are song timings, not CD track timings.
Some years ago i received a box of master reels to transfer, all recorded in the S.F.
area in 1969 and 1970, and including a variety of artists. I think most of these
are in circulation, how widely i don't know. They were all recorded by the same
taper, and these were the original reels. Most were 5-inch spools but a few of the
earliest recordings were on 3.25-inch spools. The taper re-used tapes frequently,
often recording over older shows. Sometimes recordings were made on both sides of
the tape (mono, although recorded on both channels) and later a single channel of
each side was re-used for a new one-channel recording. Tape box and reel labels
often referred to older recordings that no longer existed, and even the accurate
listings often gave no dates or venues. So there's uncertainty for many of these
regarding exact date/venue.
This one was pretty easy to date. The reel containing this recording on one side has
the headliner recording (Delaney & Bonnie with Eric Clapton) on the other side,
narrowing the timeframe to this 4-day run of shows at the Fillmore West. It's
unknown which date of the four this is from. The Delaney/Bonnie/Clapton recording
will be uploaded after this one.
Another Delaney & Bonnie show from this run is on the tracker:
http://www.dimeadozen.org/torrents-details.php?id=189593
That one claims to be from the 21st; if that date is correct, then this show is from
one of the other three nights, since it's a different performance by Delaney & Bonnie.
This group deserves some background since they're not so well-known today. I had the
pleasure of many conversations with Dorian Rudnytsky (the group's bassist) several
years ago when i sent him a copy of this recording. The interaction also led to an
article on the group's intersection with Jimi Hendrix, which turned out to be quite
fascinating. One of the songs in this set, "Sing Lady Sing", was stolen by Buddy
Miles and turned into "Them Changes," about which the band is irritated to this day.
If you're familiar with "Them Changes" but have never heard "Sing Lady Sing," you
may be astonished.
The New York Rock & Roll Ensemble was one of the first groups of the rock era to
tastefully combine classical music with rock, using instruments and arrangements
from both genres. They released five LPs during their six years together from
1966-1972.
The original group consisted of Michael Kamen (keyboards & oboe), Marty Fulterman
(drums & oboe), Clif Nivison (lead guitar), Dorian Rudnytsky (bass & cello), and
Brian Corrigan (rhythm guitar). Michael, Marty, and Dorian attended Juilliard, where
they formed their first band in the mid-60s.
Post-NYRRE, most of the members continued in music in some form, in some cases to
great acclaim. Grammy winner Michael Kamen found great success in Hollywood; the
list of films for which he composed music is mammoth, including the "Lethal Weapon"
and "Die Hard movies," "The X-Men," and dozens of others. Sadly, Michael died in
2003. Marty Fulterman worked for a short time as a writer/producer in New York City
after the Ensemble broke up, and then moved to Hollywood, where he changed his name
to Mark Snow. His impressive resume as a TV composer includes the score for the
popular television show The "X-Files."