Air was an American

jazz rock Jazz fusion (also known as fusion and progressive jazz) is a music genre that developed in the late 1960s when musicians combined jazz harmony and jazz improvisation, improvisation with rock music, funk, and rhythm and blues. Electric guitars, ...

band mainly active in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

History

The band's self-titled debut album was released in 1971 by Embryo Records, which had been founded by

Herbie Mann Herbert Jay Solomon (April 16, 1930 – July 1, 2003), known by his stage name Herbie Mann, was an American jazz flute player and important early practitioner of world music. Early in his career, he also played tenor saxophone and clarinet (incl ...

in 1969. The four core band members were Tom Coppola (

Hammond organ The Hammond organ is an electric organ invented by Laurens Hammond and John M. Hanert and first manufactured in 1935. Multiple models have been produced, most of which use sliding drawbars to vary sounds. Until 1975, Hammond organs generated s ...

Allen organ The Allen Organ Company builds church organs, home organs, and theatre organs. Its factory is located in Macungie, Pennsylvania. The Allen International Sales Headquarters also includes the Jerome Markowitz Memorial Center, a museum. It displ ...

, piano), John Siegler (bass), Mark Rosengarden (drums), and Googie Coppola (piano, vocals). The album also featured

Randy Brecker Randal Edward Brecker (born November 27, 1945) is an American trumpeter, flugelhornist, and composer. His versatility has made him a popular studio musician who has recorded with acts in jazz, rock, and R&B. Early life Brecker was born on Nov ...

on trumpet,

Michael Brecker Michael Leonard Brecker (March 29, 1949 – January 13, 2007) was an American jazz saxophonist and composer. He was awarded 15 Grammy Awards as both performer and composer. He was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from Berklee College of M ...

on saxophone,

Barry Rogers Barron W. "Barry" Rogers (May 22, 1935 – April 18, 1991) was an American jazz and salsa trombonist. Career Born in The Bronx, he descended from Polish Jews and was raised in Spanish Harlem. His family (original name: Rogenstein) possessed a ...

on trombone,

David Earle Johnson David Earle Johnson (April 10, 1938 - December 22, 1998) was a percussionist, composer and music producer. The son of Earle H. Johnson and Lottie Ruth Troutman Johnson of Florence, SC. He appeared on Billy Cobhams’ Total Eclipse and Voyage ...

on congas and timbales, Robert Kogel on guitar, Bob Rosengarden on vibes, plus

Jan Hammer Jan Hammer () (born 17 April 1948) is a Czech-American musician, composer, and record producer. He first gained his most visible audience while playing keyboards with the Mahavishnu Orchestra during the early 1970s, as well as his film scores fo ...

and Herbie Mann on percussion. Herbie Mann was also the producer. Tom and Googie Coppola were both influenced by jazz and fusion, including

time signature The time signature (also known as meter signature, metre signature, or measure signature) is a notational convention used in Western musical notation to specify how many beats (pulses) are contained in each measure (bar), and which note value ...

changes. They answered an advert in ''

The Village Voice ''The Village Voice'' is an American news and culture paper, known for being the country's first alternative newsweekly. Founded in 1955 by Dan Wolf, Ed Fancher, John Wilcock, and Norman Mailer, the ''Voice'' began as a platform for the crea ...

'' placed by

Moogy Klingman Mark "Moogy" Klingman (September 7, 1950 – November 15, 2011)
– accessed November 17, 2011 was an American musici ...

, who introduced them to Siegler and Rosengarden. The group rehearsed in

Great Neck Great Neck is a region on Long Island, New York, that covers a peninsula on the North Shore and includes nine villages, among them Great Neck, Great Neck Estates, Great Neck Plaza, Kings Point, and Russell Gardens, and a number of unincor ...

, Long Island, working on songs written by Googie. The group was spotted by Mann at a gig in the

Village Gate The Village Gate was a nightclub at the corner of Thompson and Bleecker Streets in Greenwich Village, New York. Art D'Lugoff opened the club in 1958, on the ground floor and basement of 160 Bleecker Street. The large 1896 Chicago school (architec ...

, who wanted them to be his backing band. By the time their debut album was released in 1971, family commitments led to the group splitting up. Thereafter Tom and Googie Coppola played a few times at the

Montreux Jazz Festival The Montreux Jazz Festival (formerly Festival de Jazz Montreux and Festival International de Jazz Montreux) is a music festival in Switzerland, held annually in early July in Montreux on the Lake Geneva shoreline. It is the second-largest annual ...

with the Atlantic All-Stars. According to its writer, Moogy Klingman, the song "Sister Bessie" is about "...a nun, who took

LSD Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), also known colloquially as acid, is a potent psychedelic drug. Effects typically include intensified thoughts, emotions, and sensory perception. At sufficiently high dosages LSD manifests primarily mental, vi ...

after falling in love with a

hippie A hippie, also spelled hippy, especially in British English, is someone associated with the counterculture of the 1960s, originally a youth movement that began in the United States during the mid-1960s and spread to different countries around ...

, and then made love to him, deciding she would leave the church and the convent. Apparently, the hippie had different ideas and left town quickly. This song is about what he might say to her about his hasty exit, if he said anything at all.” A limited gatefold

heavyweight vinyl A phonograph record (also known as a gramophone record, especially in British English), or simply a record, is an analog sound storage medium in the form of a flat disc with an inscribed, modulated spiral groove. The groove usually starts near ...

album, in a die-cut sleeve, was released on August 11, 2016, on the Be With label."Googie and Tom Coppola: Shine the Light of Love"
''Spectrum Culture'', Pat Padua, September 8, 2016

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Air (jazz rock band) American rock music groups American jazz ensembles American jazz-rock groups