The name Klaus Doldinger isn’t a name that carries too much heft in the States unless you’ve watched Das Boot a few too many times and can recall seeing his name on screen as the composer of the score for that flick. Otherwise, it would seem that while a pretty enormous star in Deutschland, Doldinger hasn’t broken through to American audiences in the same way as in Europe. But if you take a look at some of his work during the ’60s or ‘70s he really should have been embraced by not just jazzbos, but psych foragers as well.

Recording as a sideman with everyone from Donald Byrd to Johnny Griffin and Idrees Sulieman should have afforded Doldinger a status up there with anyone in jazz even if he continued on to front a fusion group – whose probably associated with a bit of cheese – Passport. Of course the sax player’s career had been in motion for a good fifteen years before the Passport line up was solidified. He moved between old tyme styles and eventually into a derivative bop aesthetic while working out his chops. But between these phases and before the first Passport disc, Doldinger fronted a group oddly named Doldinger’s Motherhood.

The group would release only one disc in 1970, a self titled effort that touched rock as much as it worked with jazz. The inclusion of an electric guitarist - Paul Vincent - more informed by the former genre than the latter served to make the band sound a bit like a slight Soft Machine or a less fruity Gong. But even as both of those groups enjoyed a good deal of international success, the short lived Doldinger’s Motherhood couldn’t get at it for whatever reason. It wasn’t that the band lacked talent – its leader made sure of that.

The band that works through this disc isn’t as large as other fusion acts of the era – they were basically set up like a rock band which comes across in the all too short “Circus Polka.” Its quick step chord changes and ethereal keyboard washes find it sitting close to some work by Lifetime even if this band wasn’t nearly as funky. But that track was basically an interlude serving to divide the disc between mostly instrumental tracks and the vocals that would close the album. Without question, the first two offerings are the pinnacle of the disc even if what comes afterwards takes up a great deal more time.

It’s unfortunate that “Devil Don’t Get Me” and “Song of Dying,” which do both feature a bit of vocalizing, but neither is focused upon it, don’t get to sit on a disc filled with more similar fare. And while the latter tracks might not do well in the presence of jazz snobs, Doldinger’s Motherhood should have found an audience in the rock theater.

Mysterious reasons are the only explicable ones for Doldinger disbanding this group and moving on. Everything here points to a future rife with further explorations of both rock and jazz. But regardless of what those reasons are, this disc should be give its due respect – ’70 was still kinda early for all this to have been worked out.