Light Flight and Beyond: The Road to Solomon’s Seal

When Pentangle first took the stage at London’s Horseshoe Hotel in 1967, few could have imagined how quickly their intricate, intuitive sound would reshape British music. Here was a band that bridged centuries: a meeting of tradition and modernity, of folk storytelling and jazz freedom, of acoustic delicacy and rhythmic power. Guitarists Bert Jansch and John Renbourn, bassist Danny Thompson, drummer Terry Cox and singer Jacqui McShee formed a quintet that could make a ballad from the Middle Ages feel at home alongside the syncopations of Dave Brubeck.

Across five albums on Transatlantic Records between 1968 and 1971, Pentangle created a catalogue that defined the sound of British folk-jazz. Their self-titled debut blended ancient ballads with urban sophistication; Sweet Child followed the same year as an audacious double set of live and studio recordings. By 1969’s Basket of Light - home to their Top 5 hit “Light Flight,” the theme to Take Three Girls - Pentangle were genuine chart stars. Yet for all the critical acclaim, they never lost their sense of curiosity. Each record seemed to look both backwards and forwards: Cruel Sister re-imagined traditional songs with a minimalist intensity, while Reflection pushed their sound further into improvisation.

It’s that restless spirit that makes Solomon’s Seal, now newly restored and expanded as a 2CD Deluxe Edition, such an absorbing listen. Recorded in early 1972 for their new label Reprise, it proved to be the original line-up’s swansong - a record shaped as much by their world-weary experience as by their musical telepathy. “We never thought Solomon’s Seal was going to be our final album,” recalls Jacqui McShee in the set’s new notes. “After our experiences with Transatlantic, we felt positive because we had a multi-album deal with a provision for Bert and John to record their own albums. It was a new start.”

That optimism is audible in the music. From Cyril Tawney’s maritime lament “Sally Free and Easy” to the stately beauty of “The Cherry Tree Carol” and the hypnotic “People on the Highway,” Solomon’s Seal captures Pentangle at their most refined. It’s a record of intricate interplay - John’s sitar and recorder lines curling around Bert’s finger-picked guitar, Jacqui’s pure tone threading between Danny’s supple bass and Terry’s subtle percussion. Yet underneath its serenity lies the fatigue of a band stretched thin by relentless touring and management pressure. Within a year of the album’s release, Pentangle were gone.

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Listening now, it feels less like an ending than a quiet summation of everything that made them special. The newly unearthed BBC sessions and live recordings included on this edition reveal a group still capable of breathtaking fire: extended versions of “No Love Is Sorrow,” “Jump Baby Jump” and “Lady of Carlisle” that highlight their improvisational edge. There’s even previously unheard soundtrack work from 1972, including music for the Shell documentary On Any Day - otherworldly fragments that show how their style could adapt to any setting.

If Solomon’s Seal draws a line under the classic era, Cherry Red’s earlier box set The Albums 1968-1972 offered the complete story of that first golden run: seven discs charting their evolution from smoky London clubs to international tours. It remains an invaluable document of their innovation - a reminder that even though the term “folk-rock” had been around since 1965, Pentangle were fusing jazz time signatures, Renaissance melodies and modern songwriting with effortless grace.

The band’s story didn’t quite end with their split in 1973, of course. A decade later, Pentangle found new life through reunion shows and fresh line-ups. Reunions, Live & BBC Sessions 1982-2011 gathers highlights from that second act: joyous returns at Cambridge Folk Festival, intimate BBC sessions, and the warm chemistry of musicians reconnecting after years apart. Hearing “Bruton Town” performed nearly forty years on, McShee’s voice undimmed, is to witness the circle completed.

Meanwhile, Through the Ages 1984-1995 reveals how Pentangle continued to evolve across six studio and live albums during their later years. With Jansch and McShee at the helm, joined by sympathetic players like Nigel Portman Smith, Gerry Conway and Rod Clements, the band explored new textures while remaining true to their roots. There’s a quiet confidence to these recordings - less about chart success, more about the enduring pleasure of playing together. Tracks like “So Early in the Spring” and “One More Road” show that Pentangle’s knack for fusing tradition with invention never faded.

A PREVIEW OF THE SOLOMON'S SEAL LINER NOTES

What connects all these chapters is the extraordinary chemistry that first sparked between five musicians in late-Sixties London. Jansch’s songwriting brought introspection and grit; Renbourn’s guitar work wove baroque counterpoint and blues; McShee’s crystalline vocals gave their music an otherworldly poise; Thompson and Cox anchored it all with jazz-trained intuition. Together they made music that was both grounded and ethereal - folk music that could swing, jazz that could tell stories.

There are countless anecdotes that capture their singular bond. During the Solomon’s Seal sessions, Bert and John embarked on a pilgrimage to County Clare in search of uilleann piper Willie Clancy - part research trip, part pub crawl. Their travels might not have produced a collaboration, but they deepened the friendship that lay at the band’s heart. Elsewhere, McShee recalls being invited to brunch at Reprise’s Mo Ostin’s house in Laurel Canyon - her first ever brunch, shared with Laura Nyro and Joni Mitchell, while Ostin swept mud from his garage after a flood. Moments like these reveal a band that, despite its English reserve, had quietly become part of the wider story of popular music.

Half a century on, Pentangle’s music still sounds untethered to its time. Their precision and empathy - the way each musician leaves space for the others - feels as radical today as it did in 1968. Solomon’s Seal may have marked the end of the original lineup, but this new edition finally gives it the clarity and context it deserves. Together with the earlier archival sets, it forms a complete portrait: the rise, the flowering, and the lasting legacy of one of Britain’s most visionary bands.