URBAN ASPIRINES: Sweet Smoke: Just A Poke ( 1970 ) + Darkness To Light ( 1973 )

Sweet Smoke were a 1960's and 70's progressive jazz-rock band. They incorporated many different influences, such as jazz, funk and island rhythms.
They were originally formed in Brooklyn, New York in 1967, although the band moved to live as a commune in Germany before the decade was out. Their music is one of the most loosely arranged happy-hippy-rock, very "jammy" as well as being very jazz-tinged also.

By Jay Dorfman ( Drums ) Published October 16, 2010 :

" In the late sixties I played drums with a group of Brooklyn friends that metamorphosed into a huge European cult success.

The band’s moniker came from yours truly, originally ‘Sweet Smoke of the Happy Plant Pipeful’, they came to be affectionately referred to as ‘Sweet Smoke’. It was the sixties and these kind of names and concepts and behavior and sociological, psychedelic magic and mystery were going on within you and without you.

By the dawn of the 70?s the band had acquired a sizable following and had moved to Europe where they spent the next years in a van driving though France, Holland, Germany delivering to audiences of quickly expanding sizes a typically 60?s form of rave like musical be-in.

The party was only beginning. They began to open for large European pop bands like Focus and Golden Earring. They were quickly signed to Electrola Records for a 3 Record deal in West Germany and recorded their first hallucinogenic stream of musical consciousness, the quintessential 60?s jam fest Just A Poke.

The fans and the critics were all over it, , a mix of jazz, rock, improv, avant garde, inspired just as much by John Coltrane as it was by The Doors. The cover of the record was a brazen shout out

to inner consciousness and a simple downright salute to the fact that the boys had gone cosmic, global and had tuned out, turned on and dropped whatever they could find.
The band kept rollin for years, attracting new players, loosing original members, recording with the highest rung of European free jazz musicians and generally having the time of their lives.

The fun was interrupted when suddenly in the mid 70?s some one got the bright idea they needed to get to know themselves, India, Yoga and Gurus followed, including the majority of the band moving to an ashram in India for close to a year to learn the esoteric art of Yoga and meditation. Some 35 years later the band spent 3 days together to try their hand at playing together again. the keyboardist brother of the bassist quit after the weekend and subsequent sessions were interrupted when the the bassist was called to China to exercise his professional skills, liquidation, this time at a few Home Depot stores in deepest China. "

JUST A POKE is the first album released in 1970, engineered by Conny Plank.

The song Baby Night displays the band's progressive jazz fusion style at the time. The song can be divided into three main sections, the highlights being the instrumental sections.

Line-up 1970 (Just A Poke)

Andrew Dershin – bass guitar
Michael Paris – tenor saxophone, alto recorder, vocals, percussion
Jay Dorfman – percussion and drums
Marvin Kaminovitz – lead guitar, vocals
Steve Rosenstein – rhythm guitar, vocals

Side one

1. Baby Night 16:24

Side two

1. Silly Sally 16:22

DARKNESS TO LIGHT is the second album released in 1973. The album exhibits the use of acoustic guitars, 12 string guitars and flute more than their first album Just A Poke.

Line-up 1973 (Darkness to Light)

Andrew Dershin – bass guitar
Jay Dorfman – percussion and drums
Marvin Kaminovitz – lead guitar, vocals
Michael Paris – tenor saxophone, alto recorder,flute, vocals, percussion
Jeffrey Dershin - piano, percussion, vocals
Rochus Kuhn - violin, cello

Side one

1. Just An Empty Dream 4:20
2. I'd Rather Burn Than Disappear 4:15
3. Kundalini 13:25

Side two

1. Believe Me My Friends 4:29
2. Show Me The Way To The War 5:30
3. Darkness To Light 12:51