Quantum Jump

By 1975, <a href="spotify:artist:4y0Cb1j7NWmbzt8P8p8TBb">Rupert Hine</a> 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 <a href="spotify:artist:4y0Cb1j7NWmbzt8P8p8TBb">Hine</a> 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, <a href="spotify:artist:4y0Cb1j7NWmbzt8P8p8TBb">Hine</a> 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, <a href="spotify:artist:7bAhMY1eSnJh04TU0MEJnH">Thinkman</a>. 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 <a href="spotify:artist:4y0Cb1j7NWmbzt8P8p8TBb">Hine</a> 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 <a href="spotify:artist:0bn8bDKUpS581TddwPb6cy">John G. Perry</a>, recently a member of <a href="spotify:artist:5kwbFaRKf9HCFGrJPacZ7s">Caravan</a> and a regular contributor to <a href="spotify:artist:4y0Cb1j7NWmbzt8P8p8TBb">Hine</a>'s solo work and his early productions of albums by <a href="spotify:artist:5k5yIvxtsqHqWrRBF3nhSY">Kevin Ayers</a> and <a href="spotify:artist:2d6JU9LvNhZR7AAtu4x2rS">Yvonne Elliman</a>. Auditions for a guitarist followed, during which <a href="spotify:artist:3rHBApuFwaJy65f7vWQJLr">Andy Summers</a> 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 <a href="spotify:artist:4y0Cb1j7NWmbzt8P8p8TBb">Hine</a> 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 <a href="spotify:artist:1zuJe6b1roixEKMOtyrEak">Tina Turner</a>.

Inspired by Warner's formidable technique and by their love of <a href="spotify:artist:3Ao7NH7lRyQAeKQg2mlTcO">the Mahavishnu Orchestra</a>, 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. ~ Christopher Evans, Rovi