The Folk-Jazz of Pentangle

And a distinctive sound of the late sixties and early seventies

Pentangle were a band from the sixties and seventies that are often named in the same breath as Fairport Convention and Steeleye Span, as part of a burgeoning, innovative sub-genre of the period known as folk-rock. Although the descriptive label is somewhat lazy and inaccurate. The band members themselves did not see themselves as part of that category. And I can’t think of many, if any, of their tracks that were endowed with a traditional rock beat. They style could probably better be described as folk-jazz. A distinctive part of their music was unusual time signatures sometimes shifting from 7/4 to 11/4 and 4/4 in the one song. Even their most successful single, Light Flight, had sections in 5/8, 7/8 and 6/4.

The band were made up of five members and, as five points of a star, they became a pentangle. They were Jacqui McShee on vocals, Bert Jansch on guitars, John Renbourn on guitars, Danny Thompson on double bass and Terry Cox on drums and percussion.

Jansch and Renbourn were the band’s founder members who shared a house in St John’s Wood, London. In 1967, when Pentangle first formed, they were already established as part of an emerging British…