Perception

Between the collapsing jazz club infrastructure in America’s inner cities and the shifting of popular tastes towards rock, jazz groups had a rough go of it by the early 1970s and the scene would soon be flooded with the successes of Return to Forever, Weather Report, and Head Hunters and their copycats. Philadelphia four-piece Catalyst found themselves on the outside of popular and critical acclaim. They were just as adventurous in their mixing of jazz chops, electrified instrumentation, and funk rhythms, but their four albums from that era have languished out of print ever since. A recent Jazz Dispensary vinyl reissue of Perception, the group’s second full-length from 1973, hopefully bodes for a full reissue of the group’s catalog. 

Comparison to Herbie Hancock’s Mwandishi group of the era isn’t just critical shorthand, in that Catalyst both utilized the services of Mwandishi percussionist Jabali Billy Hart and synth wizard Pat Gleason and adopted Swahili names. “Celestial Bodies” suggests the zero gravity drift of its title, before finally settling into a cosmic groove full of Nwalinu Odean Pope’s tenor sax cries. Like a visiting flying saucer, some nine minutes in, the piece then soars back up into deep space. The epic 15-minute “Perception” roves over funky peaks and valleys: burning post-bop jazz leading into more chilled-out ambience and back into serious funk, while “Ife Ife” is a lithe soul jazz number, showing the full range of the band’s capability. Too bad it took a new generation in a new century to enjoy the full perspective of their gifts.