Pekka Pohjola — B the Magpie

Esoteric are fairly new on the block. A subdivision of Cherry Red they’ve concentrated on reissuing some long lost classics of the 70s and early 80s. They’ve put back into print some great albums, mid period Hawkwind, The Deviants, Daevid Allen, Mick Farren, all great, long out of print wonderful albums that deserved to be reissued to enthral and excite another generation. So I came to this album hoping to find something new from that era that would excite me as much as some of those other releases have.

Pekka Pohjola was already a virtuoso bass guitarist, member of Wigwam and celebrity in his native Finland when he recorded B the Magpie his second solo album in 1974.
B the Magpie is very much a product of it’s time. It’s a mix of jazz rock and Euro prog. Reading the liner notes around the time this was recorded Pekka was hanging out with Frank Zappa and you can just hear the influence Zappa must have had on him in the melody lines played by the horn section. The parts they are playing are just so reminiscent of the instrumental passages of Zappa’s work from around the same period that you have to conclude that Zappa had a huge impact on Pekka. Whether or not this is a good thing I suppose depends on your opinion on Zappa but it’s definitely a starting point for a number of the pieces here.

Euro Prog and Jazz Rock are not areas I’m that familiar with so the only comparison I can make in addition to Zappa ( don’t expect this sound like Apostrophe though) is perhaps Gentle Giant. If you took their output and removed the vocals you’d not be too far away from B the Magpie.

The album as a whole is well produced, well played, the pieces are all well executed for the genre they are in but as this is an area I’m not a big fan of I can’t get myself too excited about it but if Gentle Giant, Weather Report etc are of interest to you then you’re probably going to find this and the Wigwam albums Peeka Pohjola was on to be worth exploring. Me? I’m a bit disappointed that I’d not found an Esoteric album more in line with my tastes.