The Fourth Way - The Sun and the Moon Have Come Together

It's hard to pin down who first fused jazz and rock. Frank Zappa, Larry Coryell, Gary Burton, the Soft Machine and Miles Davis were in the hunt, as was the Fourth Way in flower-powered San Francisco.

The first official CD release of any Fourth Way album should interest Antipodean jazz lovers, as Mike Nock was the pianist and main composer. Their music found favour with late-'60s rock audiences without leaning on the savage back-beats and wailing guitars shortly to epitomise fusion. Instead it offered openness,honesty and - thanks to the combination of Nock's Fender Rhodes electric piano and Michael White's violin - textural idiosyncrasy.

White's violin has a coarse, saxophone-like sound and speech-like cadences when bowed, while his pizzicato playing is delicate and toy-like. The shimmering Rhodes dances with Nock's typically memorable melodies.

He plays acoustic piano on two pieces by Ron McClure, whose amplified double bass has a robust, chunky sound, further edging the band towards a slightly rocky aesthetic.The extraordinarily fluid and unassumingly virtuosic drumming of Eddie Marshall always lets the music have its head. 

This, their second album, was recorded live in 1969, and part of the appeal to the flower-power set can probably be attributed to the back-to-nature, tribal overtones of "Ebony Plaza" and "Skiffling", and the four-equal-voices collectivity. What's more,it sounds like it was made yesterday.
 

four stars - Sydney Morning Herald  - reviewed by John Shand

The Fourth Way were formed by Mike Nock, Michael White, Eddie Marshall and Ron McClure in 1968 in San Francisco.  They were pioneers of electric jazz-rock and like a lot of pioneers they have been largely overlooked by history.

Others artists, such as Weather Report* get a lot of the credit for jazz fusion, but Nock was using all kinds of electronics long before Joe Zawinul.

And Ron McClure was playing a fretless bass long before Jaco Pastorius ever did. It's all about timing I guess !!

The outstanding "The Sun and the Moon have come together" was the Fourth Way's second release, recorded live at the New Orleans House in Berkeley 1969.

"These men had a lot to do with creating the new electric style now being put to use in the Miles Davis group and in countless other bands"  Robert Palmer  - Rolling Stone magazine 1970.

There is virually nothing about the Fourth Way on the www, but for much more detail and in-depth analysis about the Fourth Way check out Chapters 10, 11 and 12 of Norman Meehan's excellent book "Serious Fun" - available here:

http://www.birdland.com.au/catalogue/c1003/p59908

See some of the bands the Fourth Way played with - check out Wolfgang's Vault here:

http://www.wolfgangsvault.com/the-fourth-way/poster-art/postcard/FD112.html

Mike Nock and Steppenwolf - yeah !

 *The 1st WR album was released in 1971 and Jaco joined in 1976.