Morning Hymns
Even now, some people think of 70s progressive rock as a sort of playground for entitled posh boys. But Jon Field and Tony Duhig, the founder members of one of that decade’s most transcendental, idiosyncratic and largely unsung bands, Jade Warrior, met in 1962 while driving forklift trucks in a factory in Alperton, north-west London.
Field played congas and other percussion, and Duhig played a guitar that his mother had bought him from a pawn shop, and they bonded over an interest in discovering music, alighting on all points between rock, blues, jazz, modernist composers such as Stravinsky, and Eastern and African music. The two friends went on to play in number of groups including the short-lived psychedelic combo July, with their friend Tom Newman on vocals, who released a self-titled album in 1968.
But before Field and Duhig even made any music they’d compiled a list of “dream instruments” which included flute, harp, vibraphone and celeste. Field bought a flute and they began to layer sounds on Duhig’s 4-track Revox reel-to-reel.
“We weren’t just dreamy poets, we would go down to the Ealing Club and
