We believe that the musicians involved in this new group, TIP OF THE ICEBERG, are outstanding performers possessing fabulous talent. The preparation for this album extended over a period of seven months. Musical supervision and arrangements are by Jeff Hest.
The album has a dynamic inner force and drive which could contribute greatly to the continuing development of new and modern concepts in the future creation and production of pop music. – Liner notes to Tip of the Iceberg.
This little-known record, billing itself as “Contemporary Jazz Rock,” by a group implausibly billed as Tip of the Iceberg, appeared to unsuspecting consumers in June of 1975. At the time, Elton John’s Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy was the number one album and the Captain and Tennile’s “Love Will Keep Us Together” was sweeping the land.
While “contemporary jazz rock” of the day was largely being delivered by the Mahavishnu Orchestra, Weather Report, Herbie Hancock and, to some extent, Santana, it was actually rocker Jeff Beck’s Blow by Blow that was blowing minds in that vein at the time.
But one listen to the eponymous Tip of the Iceberg reveals that this is really little more than yet another sound clone of the CTI/Kudu franchise, the label that found great success in the early seventies with crossover jazz. By 1975, the label had made stars of Freddie Hubbard, Stanley Turrentine and Hubert Laws, and had a worldwide hit in 1973 with Deodato’s jazz-funk take on “Also Sprach Zarathustra.” In the summer of 1975, CTI/Kudu was enjoying yet another hit in saxophonist Grover Washington, Jr.’s Mister Magic.
II.
Tip of the Iceberg wasn’t really a band or a group, per se, and this is the only record that ever appeared under that particular rubric. It really is just the brainchild of composer, arranger and Project 3 producer/A&R director Jeff Hest, who completed the project with a large group of top New York studio musicians.
Composer and arranger Hest had come to the Project 3 label in the late sixties, likely to inject a shot of youthful vigor to the largely easy-listening label run by bandleader and former Command Records header Enoch Light (1905-78).
Project 3 had early success in youth-oriented music with the cult group Free Design and Hest’s youth injected some hip vibrations into albums by such label stalwarts as Light’s The Light Brigade, keyboardist Dick Hyman, trombonist Urbie Green and other pop-oriented outings.
Tip of the Iceberg is one of the only records ever given over to Hest, so it is likely that the disc was very much his own vision of what he wanted to do. It was recorded at the same time, with the same musicians (with the strange exception of the bass player), of the Enoch Light album The Disco Disque (also 1975). Even the same recording of “Got a Hold On” factors on both records (but the Iceberg version adds an annoyingly unnecessary 30 seconds of outro).
My Quadraphonic copy of the disc oddly features no musician credits and a cover that just says in large letters “Tip of the Iceberg.” But other stereo issues of the record bill it as “Enoch Light Presents the Dynamic Sounds of Jeff Hest: Tip of the Iceberg,” with the weird appellation “Contemporary JAZZ ROCK” and a complete list of participating musicians.
These include many of the same New York City session musicians who populate not only mid-seventies Project 3 recordings, but many CTI/Kudu recordings of the period as well:
Marvin Stamm (solo on “Squawk Talk,” “Where the Grass is Green”), Jon Faddis (lead on “Squawk Talk,” “Tip of the Iceberg”), Lew Soloff – trumpet, flugelhorn
Future CTI headliner Urbie Green (muted solo on “La Guija”), Dave Bargeron, Wayne Andre – trombone
Paul Faulise – bass trombone
George Young – tenor sax (“Got a Hold On,” “Squawk Talk,” “Mercy, Mercy, Mercy”), flute (solo on “Tip of the Iceberg”), fife (“Where the Grass is Green”), alto flute
Eddie Daniels – alto sax (solo on “Got a Hold On”), tenor sax (solo on “Mercy, Mercy, Mercy”), bass flute (solo on “Where the Grass is Green”), alto flute, bass clarinet
Phil Bodner – baritone sax, flute, alto flute
Derek Smith – electric piano (solo on “Squawk Talk, “Tip of the Iceberg,” “Mercy, Mercy, Mercy”), clavinet (solo on “Got a Hold On”)
Don Young (solo on “Squawk Talk,” “Tip of the Iceberg, “Mercy, Mercy, Mercy”), Tony Motolla (solo on “Where the Grass is Green”) – guitars
Russell George – bass
Albie Berk – drums
Sue Evans, Phil Kraus – percussion
Jane Meryll, Maretha Stewart, Hilda Harris – vocals (“Got a Hold On,” “La Guila,” “Mercy, Mercy, Mercy”)
III.
The disc opens with the disco novelty songs “Got a Hold On” and “Squawk Talk.” Both have the same vibe arranger David Matthews would bring to CTI/Kudu outings by Idris Muhammad and Hank Crawford and his own Shoogie Wanna Boogie.
The remainder of the disc gets down to more serious jazz, but still well within the CTI purview. The genuinely interesting “La Guija (The Lizard)” – which, by the way, if it is spelled “La Güija,” is Spanish for Ouija board, and as “Guija,” is a small stone or pebble – is very reminiscent of Quincy Jones’ “Killer Joe,” from the 1969 CTI classic Walking in Space.
The entirety of side two makes Tip of the Iceberg well worth hearing. The title track feels like a Blaxploitation version of Bob James’ 1974 take on “Night on Bald Mountain,” with a fiery Fender Rhodes solo that recalls Deodato’s solo on “Also Sprach Zarathustra,” the jazz funk classic that brought CTI its biggest hit in 1973. Even with those particular nods, though, “Tip” retains its own funky appeal.
Hest’s cover of the Cannonball Adderley Quintet’s “Mercy, Mercy, Mercy” also recalls Quincy Jones’ 1970 CTI cover of the Quintet’s “Hummin’.” But the album’s closer, “Where the Grass is Green,” is the disc’s most original conception. Headlined by the ever-underrated Tony Mottola’s lovely classical guitar, this gentle jazz ballad offers flugelhorn player Marvin Stamm a superb feature as well.
(In an April 22, 1976, interview with DownBeat magazine, Stamm mentions the recording of Tip of the Iceberg among the projects with which he was then engaged.)
Surprisingly, “Where the Grass is Green” was selected over something more commercial, like, say, “Got a Hold On,” as the album’s single. But the single – backed with “La Guija” – failed to garner enough airplay to warrant an official release.
“This album is a lot like its namesake,” wrote music-industry trade paper Cash Box in the only known notice of Tip of the Iceberg. “Like an iceberg your initial listen will reveal just so much to you. But, on subsequent listens, more and more of its musical subtleties will make themselves visible to you. The ebbing and flowing of this band’s jazz and funk flavored waves prove a constant exercise in musical discovery as the likes of ‘Where The Grass Is Green,’ ‘Gotta Hold On’ and ‘Tip Of The Iceberg’ do a musical number on your head. Like a little challenge with your listening pleasure? Then try Tip Of The Iceberg There’s more of it below the surface.”
That’s an awful lot of bluster and balderdash. It sort of reads like promotional copy. But it makes a reasonably fair point: If you can get past the novelty of the first two tracks, Tip of the Iceberg offers something well worth hearing, particularly for CTI/Kudu fans.
Shortly after Enoch Light’s death, Hest left the Project 3 fold to form Jeff Hest Productions, which supposedly provided easy-listening music to radio stations. (I can find no evidence of this.) Hest would go onto craft dozens of big-band charts for the Alfred Music publishing company (some of which were recorded by school bands). He later became professor of music at City University of New York.