Nick Mason's Fictitious Sports (1981): The Jazz Fusion Album Nobody Expected from Pink Floyd's Drummer

The 1981 album Nick Mason’s Fictitious Sports is one of rock’s most beguiling oddities — a jazz-fusion record from the drummer of Pink Floyd that barely features him as a writer or frontman. Instead, it’s essentially a Carla Bley project: she wrote all seven songs, played keyboards, and produced the sessions at her own Grog Kill Studio in upstate New York. Mason plays drums throughout, but the real stars are Bley’s arrangements and a cast of NYC jazz-schooled musicians.

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