condition (record/cover):  VG+ (some surface noise) / EX-(general  wear)

After four albums with the Aynsley Dunbar Retaliation and just before Frank Zappa absorbed him into the Mothers Of Invention, the Liverpool-born drummer Aynsley Dunbar assembled an ad hoc band called Blue Whale and cut this record at Marquee Studios in March and April 1970. The line-up included Alex Dmochowski on bass (already a Dunbar regular), Paul Williams on vocals, Charles Greetham on saxophone and Edward Reay-Smith on trombone. Blue Whale came out in 1971 on the French label BYG Records, primarily known for the Actuel-series free jazz of Anthony Braxton, Archie Shepp and Pharoah Sanders, but stretching here into a different territory entirely.

Five tracks across forty-five minutes. "Willing To Fight" opens with Dunbar's drumming at full attack, riffing through a tight Marquee blues. "Willie The Pimp" is the Zappa-penned vehicle that anchors the album, the same song that had appeared on Hot Rats the year before, now in a heavier, looser arrangement that uses Dmochowski's bass figure as the engine. "It's Your Turn", "Days" and the long closing "Going Home" stretch out into psychedelic-blues territory closer to Jeff Beck and John Mayall than to the Actuel roster.

The original vintage BYG pressing of SBYG 529015. Reissued by Charly in 1978 and only then on CD in 1994, Blue Whale has remained one of the more curious anomalies in the BYG catalog: a British heavy-blues record on a label founded to document the Parisian free-jazz émigrés. A late-Marquee scene document and an under-known Dunbar statement.