Dr Tree only made one album but it's a hell of a groover. My big fave is Eugino D, which has a drum break with steel drums that just KILLS. It's getting a vinyl reissue, after being restored and remastered at Abbey Rd with extra bonus tracks added. Out October 4, 2024 on WallenBink.
Formed in the early 1970s by Frank Gibson (drums) and Murray McNabb (keyboards), wth Kim Paterson (trumpet), Bob Jackson (bass), Martin Winch (guitar), and John Banks on percussion, with guest Colin Hemmingsen on soprano saxophone.
Murray McNabb: "Dr Tree started because I got hold of a record called The Mahavishnu Orchestra, The Inner Mounting Flame [1971]. The story’s been told many times. I played a track to Frank and he said, “You’ve got it on the wrong speed, you’ve got it on 45,” and I said, “Nah, it’s 33″ – and he couldn’t believe how fast Billy Cobham was playing. Anyway, I said, “That’s what we’re going to do, okay?” and, it went from there.
We did a few concerts and some very firey music came out of that, we were very much an energy band. We did our own things and a few covers of what was then new in the jazz-fusion idiom and just progressed until we conned EMI into making a record. We recorded the whole thing in about three days with Julian Lee and Alan Galbraith as producers.
That seemed to be quite successful that year, possibly because there were no outstanding rock bands that year. We won a couple of awards, Record of the Year and Fastest Rising Group. Not long after that people started moving in different directions so that was the end of Dr Tree.
They re-released it in 2007 [on CD for the first time], buggered if I know why. I certainly never made any money out of Dr Tree, apart from selling one of my songs to TVNZ for a current affairs programme. I got $200 for the music, that’s the only accounting of any sort I’ve ever seen from Dr Tree. I suppose someone must’ve made some money somewhere but I don’t believe anyone in the band did.
It was basically as always with jazz in this country, it’s not about the money it’s about playing the music and getting it out there so someone else might hear it and like it. You just keep doing what youre doing and you dont expect anything. It was good fun and a high energy band – that was the main thing about our music, we always played high energy music."
Murray McNabb talked about how the group came together to NZ Musician's Trevor Reekie in 2013:
Murray McNabb: "Dr Tree started because I got hold of a record called The Mahavishnu Orchestra, The Inner Mounting Flame [1971]. The story’s been told many times. I played a track to Frank and he said, “You’ve got it on the wrong speed, you’ve got it on 45,” and I said, “Nah, it’s 33″ – and he couldn’t believe how fast Billy Cobham was playing. Anyway, I said, “That’s what we’re going to do, okay?” and, it went from there.
We did a few concerts and some very firey music came out of that, we were very much an energy band. We did our own things and a few covers of what was then new in the jazz-fusion idiom and just progressed until we conned EMI into making a record. We recorded the whole thing in about three days with Julian Lee and Alan Galbraith as producers.
That seemed to be quite successful that year, possibly because there were no outstanding rock bands that year. We won a couple of awards, Record of the Year and Fastest Rising Group. Not long after that people started moving in different directions so that was the end of Dr Tree.
They re-released it in 2007 [on CD for the first time], buggered if I know why. I certainly never made any money out of Dr Tree, apart from selling one of my songs to TVNZ for a current affairs programme. I got $200 for the music, that’s the only accounting of any sort I’ve ever seen from Dr Tree. I suppose someone must’ve made some money somewhere but I don’t believe anyone in the band did.
It was basically as always with jazz in this country, it’s not about the money it’s about playing the music and getting it out there so someone else might hear it and like it. You just keep doing what youre doing and you dont expect anything. It was good fun and a high energy band – that was the main thing about our music, we always played high energy music."
Local jazz historian Aleisha Ward notes that the album was done at RNZ's studio in Auckland, over three Sunday mornings. "The best way to describe Dr Tree is ‘space jazz’. It fits well into that slightly out there 1970s experimentalist jazz fusion ... Dr Tree is a very easy and fun album to listen to. It’s deceptively simple on the surface, with easily followed melodies and riffs, driving rhythms and killer grooves; but repeated listening makes you aware of the subtleness and the complexities involved ...
"No matter how many times I listen to it it always takes me by surprise at how well it's done, and how effective their supporting melody line is in driving the piece along. There are subtleties like this all over the album- simple (or seemingly so) but so incredibly effective at building on motives.
"Although McNabb wondered at the point of a 30th anniversary reissue of the album in 2007 (as he said in interviews, it’s not like he ever saw any money from it), its availability digitally and on CD meant that it was now available to a new generation of listeners.
"Reissues are also vitally important for the preservation of New Zealand music because so much from the 1950s through to the 1980s had a small and finite pressing, which means it is very easy for it to completely disappear as people throw out LPs on an alarmingly regular basis. Albums like Dr Tree are important but fragile and ephemeral documents of New Zealand jazz history, which are easily lost."
Graham Reid wrote the liner notes for the 2007 CD reissue, observing "In the early 70s these were mature musicians who had been schooled in jazz and had honed their skills at literally hundreds of gigs, but they were still young enough to be as excited by the possibilities of jazz-rock fusion as their peers and mentors overseas.
"So here were some of New Zealand’s finest jazz musicians (then and now) bringing their collective skills to bear on adventurous music which had listeners and critics alike hailing them.
"In fact, although they seem to be written out of the texts on Kiwi rock history, it is worth being reminded that Dr Tree won two major music industry awards on the release of this album: most promising group and top group performance. And they were both in the “rock” category.
"Of course today we hear more jazz than rock in this music, which is understandable given who is on hand. But through Dr Tree, ventures under their own name or in other groups, these musicians made a contribution to New Zealand music in the 70s that should never be underestimated -- and most are still name-players in the local jazz scene today."
"So here were some of New Zealand’s finest jazz musicians (then and now) bringing their collective skills to bear on adventurous music which had listeners and critics alike hailing them.
"In fact, although they seem to be written out of the texts on Kiwi rock history, it is worth being reminded that Dr Tree won two major music industry awards on the release of this album: most promising group and top group performance. And they were both in the “rock” category.
"Of course today we hear more jazz than rock in this music, which is understandable given who is on hand. But through Dr Tree, ventures under their own name or in other groups, these musicians made a contribution to New Zealand music in the 70s that should never be underestimated -- and most are still name-players in the local jazz scene today."
Tracklisting: (side one and two, original album)
Side one: Twilight zone / Vulcan worlds / Transition
Side two: Eugino D / Affirmation / One for Dianne
Side three: Mood waltz / Affirmation (alt take) / The drum
Side four: Eugino D (alt take) /Fourth world / Wildlife
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