Jake’s first bassist Bill Takas had defected to Ten Wheel Drive but did feature at the The Village Gate in 1967 when the Yardbirds first heard Jake perform “Dazed And Confused”.The same happened with the opening chords of Spirit’s “Taurus” which Jimmy used for “Stairway To Heaven”.

A schizoid album by all accounts the introspective “Did You Know” harking to a Buckley / Love scape does hold intrinsic beauty.The polar “Too Long” also seemed infiltrate the future Zep repertoire while the jazzy “Penny’s” has some beautiful spontaneous riffs by Teddy Irwin, which again nibbled through “Wish I Was Anywhere Else”. The true above sound is Jake’s epitaph “Signs Of Age”..... ..an immaculate revelation that everybody will one day go through. Jake’s artistic actualization follow up, A Letter To Katherine December is translucently a monumental landscape that captures a surreal bluesy world somewhere between Arthur Lee and David McWilliams.The ambient “Chase Your Eyes” or brassy “The Diner Song” with sterling Gibson guitar work by Ted Irwin are simply sensational. It’s Forever Changes but more difficult to get into, like I said Ted Irwin is bloody fast. With a little bit of Emmitt Rhodes Jake fuses styles with abstract chords and retains a jazzy format throughout, while Charlie Fox did all the string and horn arrangements that gave the album a dreamy, jazz quality in the level of Love’s Forever Changes.

It is probably Jake’s most sophisticated album with daring quests into rarely trodden areas largely thanks to ex Paupers Skip Prokop’s snare drumming that would later thunder through Lighthouse. Letter To Katherine December spills into emotive perceptions and thoughts of thoughts, wherever that takes you.The albums opus “Leaves Never Break” reaches deep and slashes with reverb and sensitive phrasing, a masterpiece in psychedelic introspection. Anyhow back to the jazzy riffing that trots through “It’s Always Someone Else” in full Van Morrison mode until the contemplating “Sleeping Woman”, so like Tim Buckley’s Happy Sad. Jake eventually retired to Nashville . Skip and Ted later supported Deonda on her native American spirited Woman in The Sun with help from Paupers / Janis Joplin Band Brad Campbell.