Sweet Child

The second release by UK folk-jazz-blues quintet Pentangle was a double LP, half studio and half live, which featured original compositions, surprising covers (Furry Lewis’s “Turn Your Money Green,” Charles Mingus’s “Goodbye Pork Pie Hat” and “Haitian Fight Song”), and a medley of three Renaissance dance pieces by Claude Gervaise, William Byrd, and an unknown composer. Jacqui McShee’s vocals have a folky clarity which occasionally gives the band’s bluesier material an odd precision, as though she’s a nursery school teacher singing to her charges, but the band is both swinging and virtuosic. Bassist Danny Thompson and drummer Terry Cox deliver throughout; the former gets a terrific showcase on “Haitian Fight Song,” which opens with a bass solo.