Quantum Jump
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By 1975, Rupert Hine was already beginning to gain credibility as a producer and session musician, but he had also released two of that era's most cryptic solo albums in Pick Up a Bone and Unfinished Picture. The latter in particular demonstrated that Hine had few peers when it came to shaping elaborate instrumental textures and atmospheres without departing from a song-based format. Most listeners' overriding feeling on hearing them, however, was one of perplexity, and sales were correspondingly minuscule. But throughout his career, Hine has shown himself perfectly willing to rein in his more experimental tendencies for the sake of shifting a few more units. In the '80s, for instance, he largely subsumed the complexities of his three solo albums for Island beneath the hard and shiny surface of his faux band, Thinkman. And that's pretty much what he did in 1975 when he formed Quantum Jump, which is not to say that the band represented a blatant bid for chart success — far from it. But in stark contrast to the somewhat austere Unfinished Picture, Quantum Jump's first album wasn't afraid to get funky.

The band formed after Hine became a regular visitor to a countryside studio owned by drummer Trevor Morais. The two became the nucleus of Quantum Jump and were soon joined by bassist John G. Perry, recently a member of Caravan and a regular contributor to Hine's solo work and his early productions of albums by Kevin Ayers and Yvonne Elliman. Auditions for a guitarist followed, during which Andy Summers was among those passed over, but the job eventually went to the Washington, D.C.-born Mark Warner. The final ingredient was provided by lyricist David MacIver, with whom Hine had made his first recordings in 1966 as Rupert & David. One song, however ("Starbright Park"), had lyrics by Jeanette Obstoj, marking the beginning of a working relationship that continued long after Quantum Jump's demise, and which would one day find them writing for Tina Turner.

Inspired by Warner's formidable technique and by their love of the Mahavishnu Orchestra, the bandmembers wanted to see if it were possible to combine jazz-rock arrangements with a pop sensibility. Things looked promising when their first single — the untypically whimsical "The Lone Ranger" (which hinted that the Masked Man had a crush on Tonto) — became a minor hit in the U.K. The album, though, steadfastly refused to follow suit, and for the band's follow-up, Barracuda, a more polished style closer in spirit to progressive rock was adopted. Needless to say, 1976 was not the year to be launching a new prog rock band, and Quantum Jump folded soon after.

 
 

  Quantum Jump (1975)
 
Anyone coming to this after hearing Rupert Hine's 1973 solo album Unfinished Picture and expecting more of the same would have been in for something of a shock. Having recorded some of the most bewitching, if often downright perplexing, art rock of the period, Hine clearly decided he needed an urgent injection of funk. Yet though the first three tracks of Quantum Jump's debut album throw all the right shapes — slapped bass, bongoes, horn interjections, falsetto harmonies — Hine's art rock sensibilities hadn't been entirely jettisoned. The first clue comes with the ominous synth chords of standout track "No American Starship," which also provides the first indication that all involved had been listening more closely than most to the Mahavishnu Orchestra. (Guitarist Mark Warner was especially overqualified to hold down the axeman's job with any regular rock band.) There is also a quirky English sense of humor at work on a song like the now politically dubious "The Lone Ranger" ("Maybe masked man he a poofter/Try it on with surly Tonto"), which came very close to giving the band a hit when it was issued as a single, before the BBC got wind of its gay sex content and slapped a ban on it. That the funk was little more than a toy with which Hine was briefly fascinated becomes abundantly clear during "Alto-Loma Road," where the band finally gets to demonstrate its prog rock credentials via a fiendishly complex instrumental break. By the time you reach the four-part (oops, what a giveaway) "Something at the Bottom of the Sea," the Afros and sequins have been well and truly dumped. And frankly Quantum Jump's brittle jazz-rock topped off with willfully arcane lyrics ("Snake charmer/Fill your head with skin," anyone?) has exhausted its welcome well before you reach part four.
 
  Barracuda (1977)