In the wake of Jimmy Smith's widening popularity, in the early Sixties, organ trios became a bar and grill mainstay. The groups, consisting of Smith's instrument, with either tenor sax or guitar plus drums, played a blend of jazz, R&B and straight blues conducive to dancing or listening. The best of them, such as Don Patterson's, could keep the funk bubbling all night long. Most were simply content to keep the customer happy (and ordering drinks) by stringing together blues cliches.

Keyboardist Merl Saunders, a San Francisco-based musician, is decidedly out of the Jimmy Smith tradition, but his utilization of a synthesizer and Jerry Garcia's lead guitar gives his solo debut a more contemporary feeling. Unfortunately, cognizance of that which is au courant does not mean much when one's instrumental shortcomings are as manifest as Merl's.

Saunders frequently exhibits the touch, not to mention the originality, of a village smithie on his rhythm & bluesy organ solos and his work on ARP adds little or nothing to the proceedings, except on "Benedict Rides."

Garcia's weaknesses as an improvisor in this genre are obvious. The tone is tart and pleasing enough but his phrasing is monotonous. As a caustic friend observed upon hearing his solo on the textbook organ trio blues "Soul Roach," "What did you expect from an ex-folkie?"

Merl and friends, including Tom Fogarty, John Kahn and Bill Kreutzmann, have a couple of bright moments, such as the loping "After Midnight," with Garcia's best vocal of a shrill lot, and "Benedict Rides," an amusing narrative of a pretender-to-flower-childhood, sung with grit and humor by Walter Hawkins. But for the rest, it doesn't amount to anything worth releasing in the first place. (RS 143)

JAMES ISAACS