David Sancious and Tone
The Main Point
Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania
1978-xx-xx

David Sancious-keyboards, guitar and vocals
Gerald Carboy-bass
Ernest Carter=drums
Patty Scialfa-vocals
Kyle Hicks-percussion
Chris McCarrick-synth

Lineage-excellent audience capture recorded on unknown equipment> cd-r trade > EAC disc extraction> TLH for WAV to Flac and torrent creation> Dime

01-Celestial Dance
02-DS Intros and Guardian Angel
03-Nine and Seven
04-Move On
05-DS Speaks and Ever The Same
06-The Forest of Feelings
07-Dance of the Age of Enlightenment 2nd Movement-Dance of the Purification
08-Escape From the Forest of Feelings
09-Ooh Child

Here is a relatively uncirculated show from David Sancious and Tone. He refers to this on stage as being one of at least 2 nights at this particular venue with a very friendly and receptive audience. He also refers to about a year of inactivity for Tone, while various legal issues were being worked out. In the case of Ooh Child, he mentions the band learning this very unique version of the Five Stairsteps song only 2 days prior to the performance. My guess is that the legal issues related to the bands transition from CBS/Epic records to Arista and the fact that there seem to have been a couple of albums prepped at that time which never got released. One of them was Dance of the Age of Enlightenment. That did come out for brief availability on a Japanese label about 10-15 years ago. One track here is from that. Another lost project was an album called Tone Poems, and track 8 is mentioned as being slated for that. Finally, there was supposed to be a live recording of Tone as it existed around this time.
The first 3 tracks here are not actually played by Tone. They are pieces played by Sancious, Carter, Hicks, and McCarrick (whose surname I may be mishearing). The remainder are by the Tone group as it typically was known, plus Patty Scialfa (aka Mrs. Bruce Springsteen). I can't honestly say that Hicks and McCarrick are on tracks 4-9, but someone is playing keys while Sancious plays guitar at one point. There are also a few male voices on the vocal tracks which may involve some of those people. Move On and Ever the Same both eventually appeared on the wonderful True Stories album, which gets my vote for being one of the best albums of the late 70's. Tue Stories was a perfect fusion of Fusion and Prog (produced by Eddie Offord of Yes fame and featuring the voice of Alex Ligertwood of Brian Auger/Santana fame).
Sancious, of course was with Bruce and the E Streeters on their first few albums, and then fused mightily with the likes of Stanley Clarke, Lenny White, and Narada Michael Walden. He then forged associations with people like Jack Bruce, Jon Anderson, Santana, Peter Gabriel, Seal, and Sting. I got to see Tone a few times in the NY area as a trio, and in larger formats. I think they really hit their stride around the time of this show and True Stories. I've seen very few of their live recordings circulate, beyond the show from My Father's Place on Long Island. Sancious did another 2 albums around this time after True Stories. Just As I Thought on Arista, but that was no longer a Tone record, although it did include Ernest Carter. The final recording at this point was a great solo record on Elektra Musician called The Bridge.
I personally am knocked out by this recording I'm now sharing. It sounds really good, and the band is ON. I saw them at SUNY Stony Brook around this time, and I loved what they did with all of the material, but particularly the uplifting pop tune, Ooh Child. I couldn't wait to hear that again on an album, but one never came. I'm really happy it's here, although I think Patty S goes a bit more overboard than Brenda Madison, who was in the band at the gig I saw.
This is an excellent recording, that seems to be audience sourced. If it is, I don't know how such good audience sound was captured in a live venue at this point in time. If anyone has any info to share about Tone at this time, or this particular gig, please share what you know in the comments section. Huge thanks to the trader who made this available to me, and to whoever it was that shared this from the event. I definitely got this in a cd-r snail mail trade. I did seed some Sancious here a while back, but not sure if this particular show was one of those things. Please support the players by paying to see them live, and by purchasing their commercially released material.