Jazz Archives

What a stunning album is Banquet. A truly amazing symphonic album with a jazzy elements and a great brass section. Every track is quite enjoyble to me, but the forte ones are the opening piece Spanish galleon and Sorrow, the longest tracks from here. The incorporation of brass section combined with great keys and guitars and a solid voice of John Lawton made this album to be a masterpiece of the '70's, at least for me. Transitions between music segments where the instruments take the lead are very well done, specially the keys and guitars. After all this album has nothing to do with early works of Lucifer's Friend, witch are more rough, more hevy prog, than this one. Here the sound and the entire album, musicaly speaking is much mature and deserve to be included in top of the most amazing albums of the '70's. So a 5 stars for this great and never old album.

:::Review by b_olariu :::

Lucifer's Friend – Banquet (1975)

1. Spanish Galleon (11:50)
2. Thus Spoke Oberon (6:44)
3. High Flying Lady-Goodbye (3:40)
4. Sorrow (11:36)
5. Dirty Old Town (4:46)

Credits
- John Lawton / vocal
- Peter Hecht / piano, organ, mood, synthesizer, Fender Rhodes
- Dieter Horns / bass, backing vocals
- Peter Hesslein / guitar, 12 string guitar, acoustic guitar, percussion, backing vocals
- Herbert Bornhold / drums, percussion, backing vocals
Guest musician:
- Herb Geller / Soprano saxophone solo on (1) and flute on (4)