Group 87 -

Group 87 was an American instrumental jazz-rock group that released a 1980 self-titled album and the 1984 follow-up A Career in Dada Processing.

Members: Mark Isham (trumpet, keyboards), Patrick O’Hearn (bass), Peter Maunu (guitar, keyboards, percussion, violin, mandolin), Terry Bozzio (drums, 1980), Peter Van Hooke (drums, percussion, 1984), Brian MacLeod (drums), Peter Wolf (piano)

Background

Group 87 formed in the San Francisco Bay Area in 1978 when trumpeter–keyboardist Mark Isham, guitarist–keyboardist Peter Maunu, bassist Patrick O’Hearn, and drummer Terry Bozzio assembled around instrumental compositions. The four musicians belonged to an overlapping Bay Area network that extended through jazz groups, orchestral work, and Frank Zappa circles.

Isham was born on September 7, 1951, in New York City and moved with his family to the Bay Area as a teenager. He studied piano, violin, and trumpet, then played trumpet with Bay Area orchestras before work with the Sons of Champlin and pianist Art Lande in Rubisa Patrol, which recorded two albums for ECM Records.

Maunu began as a classical violinist and earned a San Francisco Conservatory of Music scholarship in his early teens. Violin teacher Patricia Isham introduced him to her son Mark Isham, and Maunu later shifted his main attention to guitar before recording and touring with Airto Moreira, Billy Cobham, Jean-Luc Ponty, and the L.A. Express.

O’Hearn was born on September 6, 1954, in Los Angeles and grew up in the Pacific Northwest. He entered the Portland musicians union at age fifteen, studied at Cornish College of the Arts and with bassist Gary Peacock, then moved to San Francisco in 1973 for work with Charles Lloyd, Joe Henderson, Dexter Gordon, and other jazz bandleaders. Frank Zappa recruited O’Hearn in 1976, where the bassist expanded from acoustic bass into electric bass and synthesizers.

Bozzio was born on December 27, 1950, in San Francisco and studied drum set, percussion, and timpani at Sir Francis Drake High School and the College of Marin. He worked in Bay Area jazz groups with Isham, Maunu, and O’Hearn by the early 1970s, recorded with trumpeter Luis Gasca, then joined Zappa before a 1977 stint with the Brecker Brothers.

Bozzio left Zappa for Group 87 as the musicians prepared a 1978 CBS audition. Keyboardist Peter Wolf figured in the original plan but returned to Zappa, while Bozzio proposed a rock-oriented format with songs and vocals. Isham, Maunu, and O’Hearn committed the project to instrumental composition, and Bozzio declined membership after the group secured a CBS contract. He nevertheless agreed to record the album as an additional musician.

The settled Group 87 core comprised Isham, Maunu, and O’Hearn, with Wolf retained as an additional keyboardist. The group set the debut recording dates for a break in Bozzio’s commitments to the English supergroup U.K., where he replaced Bill Bruford in the trip lineup behind the 1979 album Danger Money.

Group 87

Group 87 released their self-titled debut album in 1980 on Columbia.

The nine instrumentals pair Isham’s trumpet and electronic keyboards with Maunu’s guitar, keyboards, and violin over O’Hearn’s bass, tracked by Bozzio with pianist guest Peter Wolf.

“Future of the City” rises from a funereal fanfare into a sudden electronic rush. “Magnificent Clockworks” pivots through a transforming synthesizer figure over mechanical accents, then crests in a broad finale. “Frontiers: 1856” drifts through hypnotic chords and faint electronic swirls. “Sublime Feline” ascends through dense passages toward a symphonic peak.

“The Bedouin” circles a mournful, obsessive figure. “While the City Sleeps” hovers through minimalist lines and sparse layers. “Moving Sidewalks” gathers slowly through shifting figures and playful turns. “One Night Away From Day” unfurls restrained passages before a heated guitar solo carries an anthemic close.

A1. “Future of the City” (5:01) – Maunu
A2. “Magnificent Clockworks” (4:30) – Isham
A3. “Frontiers: 1856” (3:16) – O’Hearn
A4. “Sublime Feline” (6:25) – Isham

B1. “The Bedouin” (3:21) – Maunu
B2. “While the City Sleeps” (2:25) – Isham
B3. “Moving Sidewalks” (4:24) – O’Hearn
B4. “Hall of Glass” (2:34) – Maunu
B5. “One Night Away from Day” (5:55) – Maunu

Group 87 co-produced the 1979 sessions with producer-engineer Ed Thacker, who recorded and mixed the album with Brian Leshon and Phil Jost as second engineers. Thacker also engineered 1979/80 albums by Jean-Luc Ponty (A Taste for Passion) and Tommy Tutone.

Nancy Donald designed the sleeve around a front image by British fashion photographer Steve Hiett. His photograph places a black-and-white facade beneath a blue sky, with a multicolored towel draped over the lower balcony. Hiett issued the 1983 photography-and-music project Down on the Road by the Beach. Robert Steve Bauer supplied the Group 87 backside color-negative portraits.

Between albums, O’Hearn regrouped with Bozzio and fellow Zappa alumnus Warren Cuccurullo in Missing Persons, a futurist new wave combo headed by Terry’s wife, Dale Bozzio.

A Career in Dada Processing

Group 87 released their second album, A Career in Dada Processing, in 1984 on Capitol.

Isham and Maunu rebuilt Group 87 around drummer Peter Van Hooke. The two leaders wrote all eight pieces, with O’Hearn added to the title composition and listed among five additional contributors. Van Hooke combines acoustic drums with electronic percussion; Maunu adds guitar synthesizer and mandolin to the trumpet, keyboard, guitar, and violin instrumentation.

“Postcard From the Volcano” threads tribal accents through playful motifs, then joins two principal themes in closing counterpoint. “Pleasure in Progress” careens through frenetic patterns and dense electronic figures. “The Mask Maker” pivots around a rhythmic trumpet lead. “The Apple Bites Back” quickens through emphatic accents and a strident refrain.

“A Career in Dada Processing” glides through supple syncopation and enveloping lines. “Angels and Obelisks” unfurls sensual, baroque phrases. “The Death of Captain Nemo” descends through dramatic, film-score contours.

A1. “Postcard from the Volcano” (4:51)
A2. “Pleasure in Progress” (4:42)
A3. “The Mask Maker” (5:40)
A4. “The Apple Bites Back” (5:20)

B1. “Lough Erin’s Mist” (2:58)
B2. “A Career in Dada Processing” (5:42)
B3. “Angels and Obelisks” (4:55)
B4. “The Death of Captain Nemo” (4:00)

Sessions spanned November 1983 through January 1984 at Strawberry Recording Studios in South Dorking, Surrey, where Isham, Maunu, and drummer Peter Van Hooke co-produced with engineer Nick Ryan. Van Hooke entered the project after drum work with Mark Isham (Vapor Drawings) and Van Morrison (Inarticulate Speech of the Heart); his 1984 credits also included Scott Walker (Climate of Hunter).

Capitol art director Roy Kohara directed the packaging from a concept and lettering by P-TI Brunner. Kohara also directed the artwork for the 1983 Tubes album Outside Inside and the 1984 Icon debut. Peter Andrew Allen designed the sleeve around Phil Fewsmith photographs that place two black figures against white terrace bands and fractured color fields on the front. The monochrome backside extends the architectural scene with a suitcase in the foreground.

Postlude

Isham entered Group 87’s final phase with a parallel solo and film-score career already underway through his 1983 Windham Hill debut Vapor Drawings and score for the Disney film Never Cry Wolf.

After A Career in Dada Processing, Van Hooke joined Mike + the Mechanics for their 1985 debut, while O’Hearn launched his solo career that year with the Private Music album Ancient Dreams, with Isham on trumpet. O’Hearn and Bozzio regrouped with Missing Persons for the 1986 album Color in Your Life.

Group 87 ties resurfaced on Isham’s 1988 album Castalia, which reunited Maunu, O’Hearn, and Bozzio in a larger ensemble. Maunu released his 1990 solo album Warm Sound in a Gray Field on Narada.

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