Dick Morrissey & Jim Mullen
Morrissey Mullen was a British jazz-funk/fusion group of the seventies and eighties. Dick Morrissey, ex-IF, (tenor and soprano saxes and flute) and Jim Mullen, ex-Brian Auger's Oblivion Express, (guitar) joined forces in 1975 and played together for some 16 years, during which time they developed their hallmark calls and responses between guitar and sax.
The band came into being in New York City where Dick Morrissey and Jim Mullen were recording and touring with their mutual friends in the Average White Band and Herbie Mann.
Coinciding with the recording and release of the first of seven Morrissey Mullen albums (plus two EPs), Up (Atlantic, 1977), which featured the guys from AWB as a rhythm section, plus Luther Vandross and Cissy Houston on vocals, together with some of the New York scene’s top session musicians (see Discography below), the Morrissey Mullen band spent eight months in New York, including a celebrated six-week residency at Mikell’s,
On their return to the U K they concentrated on the small-club/pub circuit, with sell-out gigs. In 1979, EMI commissioned them to enter the Abbey Road recording studios to make EMI's first-ever digital recording of a non-classical music piece.
Their defining album Cape Wrath was a British Fusion classic with
Dick Morrissey - tenor sax,
Jim Mullen – guitar,
Richard Bailey – drums,
Kuma Harada – bass,
Max Middleton – keyboards,
Robert Ahwai – guitar, Tony Carr – percussion
Produced by Max Middleton it one of a pair , coupled with the Max Middleton & Robert Ahwai album Another Sleeper which featured:
Max Middleton - Keyboards,
Darryl Lee Que - Percussion
Linda Taylor - Vocals
Christie Thompson – Vocals,
Chris Rainbow – Vocals,
Robert Ahwai – Guitar,
Richard Bailey - Drums
Trevor Barber Trumpet
Bud Beadle Wind
George Chisholm Trumpet
Steve Gregory Wind
Kuma Harada Bass
It is a shame that the Morrissey Mullen catalogue is not available on CD but I am particularly puzzled that these two great albums remain unavailable.
Morrissey Mullen were particularly strong as a instrumental group but they felt the need to have a vocalist, I guess the A&R man at Beggar’s Banquet (their label for many of their recordings) thought they needed one to make them more marketable. I do not necessarily think that any of the singers were not up to it but I do think that the constant change lead to a blurring of group identity.
Despite these misgivings I always really liked this band, they were wonderful live.. This album offers a good cross section of the band’s recordings and it is a brilliant slice of fusion.
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