Charles Earland - Leaving This Planet (Prestige)

Earland, better known as The Mighty Burner, made a name for himself via a handful of soul jazz ventures in the late 60s. These early sessions offered a blend of flashy B-3 fireworks and an emphasis on baroque feeling over polished functionality. At the dawn of the Sunshine decade his projects for Prestige veered into some fairly adventurous directions, ensnaring rock, Latin, electronics and even free jazz in a widely cast net. This disc reissues what is arguable prize of the bundle, a concept album that takes its primary cues from fusion and science fiction. Earland espouses a manifesto in common with the more accessible sides of Sun Ra. Surrounded by a nest of then-cutting edge consoles that includes ARP and Moog synthesizers, clavinet, electric piano and organ; he leads a revolving studio band through an episodic cosmic melodrama. The sphinxlike Dr. Patrick Gleeson, a colleague of Earland’s on other records of the era, aids and embellishes from his own ARP and Moog amalgamation. A core flight crew of Freddie Hubbard, Joe Henderson, Dave Hubbard, Mark Elf and Larry Killian mans the mothership. Guests like Eddie Henderson, Eddie Arkin and Brian Brake bolster the band in other key soloist slots. Oddly enough there’s no bassist. Earland himself handles that chore, his pedals working overtime so that a conventional upright presence isn’t even missed.

As the undisputed blue chips in the horn section, Henderson and Hubbard display their indefatigable chops on nearly every track. No matter how grandiose and congested the backdrops become, the saxophonist’s machete-sharp tenor still manages to slice through with a postbop phraseology punctuated by emotive honks. Hubbard triggers the boosters numerous occasions too, his rocket-tail runs arcing above the tangled nebula of wah-wah guitars, aqueous recombinating keyboards and slippery funk beats. The other Hubbard and Henderson (Dave and Eddie, respectively) hold their own, but are continually outclassed by their frontline peers. The title cut sets the mood as a perfect opener. Rudy Copeland’s pinched, entreating vocals sketch the skeletal plot points of a dystopian futurist fantasy as the ensemble quickly achieves escape velocity from a socially and environmentally blighted Earth. “Warp Factor 8” layers strata of heavy vamping guitars and keys in a call and response between rhythm section and horns. Other tunes like “Asteroid” and “Mason’s Galaxy” advance the extraplanetary fixations even further. There’s even room for amped-up readings of Hubbard’s “Red Clay” and Henderson’s “No Me Esqueca” in the capacious 79-minute flight plan. The package presents a rare instance where a Prestige two-fer arrives with its original program completely intact without the usual excising of a track or two due to time constraints. Not everything works at an exemplary level, but the overall trip remains a damn engaging and entertaining one just the same.

Is it dated? Definitely. But among Earland’s early oeuvre it’s virtually guaranteed to please.