Jam sessions: John Goodsall, Dean De Benedictis, Mick Stevens, Brock Avery

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This is a full set of compiled rehearsals and jam sessions by a replacement lineup for progressive rock/fusion band Brand X, in 2003. It was a rough recording but we felt the performances were still good enough to share. Most of the music in this set was improvised and the few compositions that can be heard had never been played by the band before, other than by John Goodsall who was the only original Brand X member in this lineup of musicians.

For the sake of minor trivia, also in this lineup was bassist Mick Stevens who performed with Brand X at Prog Fest, and electronic-music recording artist Dean De Benedictis on keyboards (known as Surface 10) who featured Brand X bassist Percy Jones on one of his solo albums. Dean, Mick and Brock Avery (the drummer in this recording) also eventually played together in The Stratos Ensemble. Doug Lunn, the bassist who ran The Fire Merchants along with John Goodsall, also played for The Stratos Ensemble, so the particular Brand X line-up in this recording has a circulatory significance for fans of any of these bands.

Some of these musician's best musical moments together are in these recordings, as well as perhaps some of their worst. It is undoctored life unfolding.

(Note: all arrangements performed in these recordings that are not official Brand X songs were composed primarily by bassist Mick Stevens [with the exception of cover songs: "Lila's Dance" by the Mahavishnu Orchestra and "Birdland" by Weather Report].)

MAIN LINE UP:
guitar - John Goodsall
bass - Mick Stevens
keyboards - Dean De Benedictis
drums - Brock Avery

(Due to a minor miscalculation, the music heard here from the 47-minute mark onward does not include John Goodsall on guitar and Brock Avery on drums. From 47 minutes to the end, the guitarist is actually John Jones and the drummer is Ian Brumbough [during the same year as the Goodsall sessions]. We apologize for the mixup.)