Mindbender album cover (left) and the photo of David Flack that appeared on the back of the jacket (right; the scratched scan taken from a well-worn copy of the album)

In 1970, Sonobeat began work with San Antonio native David Flack, whose trio performed as The David Flack Quorum. The resulting album, Mindbender, was released years after it was recorded. The first few tracks of the album were recorded at Sonobeat's Western Hills Drive studio in northwest Austin in summer '70. The album -- which fused the jazz and classical genres -- was completed in stages over the following three years, in part because of the disruptive move of Sonobeat's studio to the KVET building on North Lamar in Austin, David's departure for service in the Army in 1971, and an extended search for a vocalist who, as David Flack recalls, "could sing against the 'soundtrack' already in the can."

Rim Kelley (Bill Josey Jr.) engineered the Western Hills Drive sessions before moving to Houston in fall '70, at which time Bill Josey Sr. took over engineering as well as producing duties. The majority of the album was recorded and mixed at the Sonobeat studios in the KVET building on North Lamar in Austin. When David returned in '73 from a 2-year tour of duty in the Army, he and Bill Sr. reconnected, and Bill Sr. began offering the album to national labels. Eventually, Liberty/UA Records in Hollywood, with which Sonobeat had an established relationship through the Johnny Winter and Afro-Caravan albums, expressed interest in the album for its UA and Blue Note labels, but Bill Sr.'s battle with cancer -- diagnosed in 1975 -- interfered with putting a deal together. Eventually, David designed the album jacket and financed the album's regional release. Mindbender was finally released early in '76, after a long and oft-interrupted journey. Notably, this was Sonobeat's only commercial release on which its stylized logo (in the ribbon-like Stiletto font) did not appear.

The David Flack Quorum album master tapes and album label

The DFQ was David Flack (electric and acoustic keyboards), Hugh Sparks (acoustic bass), and Emory Alford (percussion). Marva Jackson provided vocals. All songs were written by David Flack. Side 1 of the album, initially themed under the subtitle Scatter Power, features six diverse pieces, including Marva's terrific scat on Chas'er and David's moody piano on So-Lo; side 2 features the Mindbender Suite, consisting of seven interlinked movements presented without breaks. The liner notes aptly summarize the album's appeal: "Conceptual in approach and communicative by design, MINDBENDER has that rare quality of freshness and timelessness ... DFQ has sterling improvisational ability with clever interplay techniques: The music is engaging, demanding, and fun!" And here are four hot sound bites from the album to prove how imaginative the DFQ's material was. We've remixed these sound bites from the original 4-track master tapes for clarity; we hope you'll enjoy Marva's vocal performances on Once I Dreamed (which was listed on the master tape box under the title Inside It), So What??, and Free -- Part 1 (from the Mindbender Suite) as much as we do and will get a kick out of the dynamic interplay between David's keyboard pyrotechnics and Marva's cool scat on Chas'er.