Patrick O’Hearn is an excellent composer known for his synthesizer work and bass playing. In more recent years, he’s more renown for his mellow new age music. For example, some of his music was used for the forecasts on The Weather Channel in the late 80s. Here is old Weather Channel footage featuring Patrick O’Hearn’s “Homeward Bound”:
He’s still at it, with a more modern sound but still firmly in the confines of new age music. Here he is performing “The Approaching Ice” off of his 2007 album Glaciation:
Despite this, his back story is more interesting than it appears.
He first rose to promenance as a member of Frank Zappa’s band! He played bass with Zappa from 1976-1979. He appeared in the infamous movie Baby Snakes (which is a must-see for even casual Zappa fans). Here he is playing “Black Napkins” (along with drummer Terry Bozzio and guitarist Adrian Belew) from that movie which blows away the original studio recording:
Eventually he was replaced in the band by Arthur Barrow. However for a little while there was a transistion period where they both simultaneously played bass with Zappa.
Pretty cool, despite the low quality of the video!
In 1980 Patrick O’Hearn continued playing with Terry Bozzio in the very popular new wave band Missing Persons. He still occasionally played bass in that group, but predominately played synthesizer. They even performed at Steve Wozniak’s massive US Festival in 1983:
For a very short time between playing with Frank Zappa and joining Missing Persons Patrick O’Hearn was in a very obscure group called Group 87. Other members of Group 87 included trumpet player Mark Isham (who previously played with Boz Skaggs and Van Morrison among others) and guitarist Peter Maunu (fresh from Jean-Luc Pony’s jazz fusion group). Terry Bozzio also played with Group 87 but never officially as a member…they considered him a “consultant”, whatever that means.
They put out one self-titled record in 1980 which is today’s pick!
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The entirely instrumental album was a pretty weird mixture of jazz fusion, progressive rock and new age. While there is little or no improvisation (everything seems very tightly composed and controlled) there is still a lot of fire and excitement with their playing. The songs themselves have a lot of unique twists and turns and arrangements. There’s a somewhat dated early 80s sound to the proceedings but I think that’s part of what makes the record work.
The album starts off with “Future in the City”. It begins in kind of a subdued jazzy mode but eventually picks up steam into a full-on jazz fusion burner. It certainly grabs the listener’s attention:
“Magnificent Clockworks” is next. It is a very funky tune with elements of space rock in it. The interplay between O’Hearn and Bozzio really shine here:
Another highlight is “Sublime Feline” which is probably the song most influenced by hard rock on the record. It wouldn’t be out of place on a Jeff Beck or Al Di Meola record. Bozzio shows off some cool fills and it also features some of his trademark trashy, splashy cymbal work:
I also really like “The Bedouin” which has this almost kind of doom-rock bass and drum thing going on (the drums almost sound like they have a backwards effect on them). But the doom is contrasted by the uplifting and melodic keyboards. A cool juxtaposition!
On “Moving Sidewalks” Peter Maunu plays violin which puts it squarely in the same ballpark as what Jean-Luc Ponty was doing around this time: A synthetic brand of prog fusion with soaring violin over the top:
The record closes with “One Night Away From Day” which always made me think it would be perfect as the closing credits to a thriller or sci-fi movie. A fitting end to an album that could almost serve as a soundtrack.
Finally, while gathering the videos for today’s pick I was surprised to discover that there is footage of Group 87 performing live! I assumed they were strictly a studio endeavour but apparently I was very wrong. The visuals that are part of this video were apparently projected on screens during the actual concert. The description of the video mentions that the entire performance spans 40 minutes (this is just an 8 minute snippet). I would love to see the whole thing someday:
Group 87 was definitely an obscurity, but I think it merits a rediscovery. They had a ton of interesting ideas and experimented with what was at the time cutting edge technology. It is especially nice listening on a cold winter night.
