Emergency - Entrance (1972)

Hanus Berka - saxophone, flute, keyboards, mellotron
Frank Diez - guitar
Otto Bezloja - bass
Jioí Matoušek - keyboards
John Redpath - drums, vocals
Curt Cress - drums

The German based band Emergency was founded in 1970 by Czech musician Hanus Berka, who already had a career as an arranger and sideman in the States among others with Jan Hammer and Miroslav Vitous. The multicultural band consisted of Berka (sax & keyboards) fellow Czechs Jiro Matousek (keyboards), Otto Bezloja (bass) and Dusko Goykovic (trumpet), German drummer Udo Lindenberg and Englishman Barrie Newby on guitar.The band recorded two jazz-rock records with brass arrangements for CBS. 'Emergency' (1971) and in 1972 'Entrance' with a changed line-up. In the summer of '72 the band split up, only to be reformed in December of the same year with a complete new line-up: Berka, Peter Bischof (ex-Orange Peel, lead vocals), Richard Palmer-James (ex-King Crimson lyricist, guitar& vocals) Jerzy Ziembrowski (bass), Veit Marvos (ex-2066 &Then, keyboards), Martin Harrison (percussion) and Bernd Knaak (drums). The new line-up secured a record deal with Brain and recorded two commercially oriented records 'Get out To the Country' (1973) and 'No Compromise' (1974) the last again with a changed line-up. Both records present jazz-rock with blues and soul elements. Afterwards the band folded for good.

"Emergency Entrance", released in 1972, also on CBS, saw the replacement of Newby with Frank Diez (Armaggedon) and Lindenberg with John Redpath. This was arguably their best album, as the third album, "Get out to the Country", saw the band at their most commercial and was, by and large, a great disappointment, even though this album featured the talents of Karthago vocalist/percussionist Peter Bischof and Demon Thor/Twenty Sixty Six and Then keyboard player Veit Marvos. Supertramp guitarist Richard Palmer-James also featured on this album, which was their first for the famous Brain label. Which brings us to this, their final album, which now featured new drummer Todd Canedy, ex-Cusco, and Frank Diez, back in the fold after a short stint in Atlantis (the band, not the waterlogged continent!). The album, which comes a close second to "Entrance", was their most progressive to date and featured a good collection of songs and instrumentals. The band disappeared without trace in the mid seventies.

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