Still, years later, Morrison maintained that he wasn't necessarily trying to make a jazz-rock fusion album. If they had set up to make this holy album that we'd be talking about 50 years later, they would probably have practiced for weeks and rolled out the red carpet - and it probably would have failed.'
There's an element of accident, or happenstance, to this. 'I think so much of it is just this beautiful train wreck of so many different people working on it with no rehearsals. 'He just showed them the compositions, and then they all just spat out those beautiful songs.' They were confused by him, (wondering), 'Who is this guy?'' Walsh said. 'Van barely even said hello to these guys. He met his band on the first day of recording. On producer Lewis Merenstein's insistence, a (begrudging) Morrison took the unusual step of hiring a group of jazz musicians such as Connie Kay of the Modern Jazz Quartet and bassist Richard Davis.
