PASSPORT - First 1971

Passport

Passport was actually the name of a Klaus Doldinger group album, issued in 1971, that proved so popular that in reality Passport became the name of the band and Doldinger the album title! Klaus had tried numerous different types of music before this, but his most successful in progressive realms was Motherhood. Actually Motherhood had a good name, as they gave birth to two bands: Hallelujah (Forsey and Vincent) and Passport (the rest of the band, with Amon Düül II cohorts Kübler and Jackson).

MPS Records Joachim Ernst Berendt was fascinated at how Passport "combined the best rock talents on the German scene" as a jazz fusion band. It's easy to see why it proved so popular at the time, as the Munich music scene was booming with weird musics, and the Passport approach with its strong melodic context and powerful arrangements, added up to a more widely accessible music.

Extremely early for featuring synthesizer, with Jimmy Jackson's haunting keyboards, and excellent use of winds, it's one heck of a powerful fusion. Klaus had come up with, a winning combination, yet by the time of SECOND Klaus' accomplices were a different band, notably so English musicians John Mealing and Bryan Spring who never stayed around long. Then, on HAND MADE came Frank Roberts before joining Isotope. This era saw a move to music reminiscent of Soft Machine and Nucleus, with a new Passport style growing out of it gradually, as a stable quartet of all-German musicians was established on LOOKING THRU.

Defined by powerful rhythmic structures, Doldinger's unique sax style, a wealth of keyboards and synthesizers, and Curt Cress' superb drumming, Passport continued to progress and develop for the next three years, with two more excellent studio albums, and also two very varied concert documents with Passport augmented by famous jazz friends. IGUACU, recorded in Brazil, was the last album by this incarnation, but didn't really work as a Passport album being diluted by too many Latino and ethnic touches. Obviously the band thought so too, and all left to work on other projects. Again, a new Passport was born, starting with the highly synthesized ATARAXIA, but thereafter something went radically wrong, the rot set in, as soul and pop songs ate into the music. In all fairness, Klaus should have called it a day with IGUACU, and established a band under a different name. But, like most bands, a marketable name meant a string of mediocre albums throughout the 80's. A shame when one considers how creative the era of 1971 to 1976 was.

The band :

Klaus Doldinger (tenor/alto saxes, Moog, electric piano), Olaf Kübler (tenor sax, flute), Jimmy Jackson (organ), Udo Lindenberg (drums), Lothar Meid (bass)

Link : FIRST