Quintessence

Quintessence ranked among the earliest authentic progressive rock ensembles to secure a contract with Island Records. The band was fronted by Australian-born Shiva Shankar Jones on keyboards and vocals alongside Raja Ram, who played flute, violin, and percussion. Completing the lineup were Alan Mostert on lead guitar, Sambhu Babaji on bass, Maha Dev on guitar, and Jake Milton on drums; all members shared both a deep interest in Indian music and the Hindu faith. Their origins traced to London’s Notting Hill hippie enclave, the city’s equivalent of San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury. A standout set at the Implosion festival drew the attention of Island Records, which promptly signed the group and issued their debut album—an elaborately packaged concept work titled In Blissful Company—before the close of the year. Blending rock, jazz, and Indian elements, the record connected strongly with their core listeners, especially the track “Notting Hill Gate,” a tribute to the local hippie community that reached a modestly wider audience and prompted the band to recut it as a more pop-oriented single. Quintessence maintained a formidable live reputation, and their early studio work extended that foundation. Commercial fortunes peaked with the self-titled second album, which climbed to number 22 on the U.K. charts. After one further Island release, the group shifted to RCA’s fledgling British progressive imprint Neon for two albums in the early 1970s. Jones left soon after the second of those records appeared, and the band dissolved shortly thereafter. In 1973 Jones joined the large-scale progressive outfit Kala, which produced one album for the Bradley’s label, and in later decades he relaunched his own iteration of Quintessence.