Just as "Glad" slows to a fading stop, the twisted melody of Winwood's basic piano chords and Wood's saxophone interrupt to start "Freedom Rider." With a beautiful reverb around one of Winwood's best vocal performances, Traffic shifts more into a galloping rock vein while keeping the jazz touches intact. Listening to it again, I'm not even quite sure there's a bass guitar on it. In that heyday of Zeppelin's "Whole Lotta Love" and Creedence's "Green River," Traffic's "Glad" must have sounded very hip and out-of-nowhere to progressive radio DJ's with its flat-out jazz fusion style. With exotic minor chord changes, pumping in like some kind of action TV series theme, "Glad" signaled that this Mason-less Traffic was taking a different road than just about anything else out there. John Barleycorn opener "Glad" was almost like a gauntlet being thrown down, a seven-minute jazz rock instrumental featuring Winwood's lightening quick bebop piano melody up front, his overdubbed B-3 organ and Wood's exuberant blowing saxophone solo, so vivid that they sounded very much live and like a band jamming away in a basement club somewhere. Traffic was truly a once-in-a-lifetime melding of tremendous musical talents: keyboardist/singer Winwood, drummer Jim Capaldi (who co-wrote much of the material with Winwood), and multi-instrumentalist Chris Wood, adding a bassist and percussionist for their next album, Low Spark of High Heeled Boys. Winwood detoured to his one famous Blind Faith album with Eric Clapton and Ginger Baker, but then reformed Traffic with a whole different direction on what was supposed to be his first solo album, John Barleycorn Must Die.
In their first incarnation, mostly with guitarist Dave Mason aboard, they were distinctly psychedelic ("Paper Sun," "Hole In My Shoe") or just kind of dirge-like ("Dear Mister Fantasy"). Considered a classic rock staple, Traffic's star seems to have faded over the years, but then again, they were never an easy band to pigeonhole, like Led Zep's heavy metal blues bombast, Pink Floyd's slow downer space rock, The Doors' exotic drugged out bliss attacks or Creedence's tremolo-ridden swamp rock.
In his long career in rock and roll, Steve Winwood's best musical work was with the prog/jazz/rock/folk band Traffic.
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