Howard Wales 'Rendezvous With The Sun'

You may probably remember the name of Howard Wales due to his association with The Grateful Dead's Jerry Garcia, but besides those important collaborations Wales has also produced some highly interesting solo material. Among it, one of the best jazz funk / psych fussion albums ever: Rendezvous With The Sun. Wales had played backing artists such as Ronnie Hawkins, Lonnie Mack, James Brown or The Four Tops as a session musician before becoming a member of psychedelic blues combo AB Shky, who moved from Milwaukee to the San Francisco Bay Area. He then explored the worlds that span somewhere between psychedelia and funk when forming part of Shades Of Joy, the band that recorded Alejandro Jodorowsky's Music Of El Topo LP in 1970. That same year he joined forces with Jerry Garcia and released the acclaimed Hooteroll? album. Rendezvous With The Sun was released on Costal Records in 1976 and contained ten splendid jazz funk psych fussion songs, the mixture of different styles Wales is so good at. The musicians that contributed in the recording sessions where basically the same that had accompanied him and Jerry Garcia on the Hooteroll Band in 1972: Jim Vincent on guitar, Tom Donlinger on drums and of course Wales on keyboards, augmented by Pete Escovido on percussion and congas, Doug Killmer, Peter Marshall and Roger "Jelly Roll" Troy on bass, Bill Champlin on guitar, Pat Gleason on synth and seven horn players, including Martin Fierro, Jock Ellis, Chuck Bennet, Jane Woodworth and three members of Frank Zappa's Petit Wazoo ensemble: Gary Barone, Mike Altschul and Sal Marquez.