I'd Love to Turn You On #229 - Jeff Beck - Wired

Jeff Beck is the most interesting guitar player to come out of the 1960’s. More than anyone that played in the Yardbirds before, with, or after, he really made his guitar a voice that cannot be replicated. You see people playing in Led Zeppelin cover bands and people doing Cream covers, and they can copy their specific guitar tones and styles easily. But nobody ever does Jeff Beck Group songs, nor do you hear “That guy can play guitar just like Jeff Beck.” It just doesn’t happen, because it can’t be done. His sound kept evolving in a more unique way which led him right into jazz-fusion. As while his peers were expressing their devotion to blues, jazz is what excited Beck and pushed his guitar playing to the next level, rather than plateauing at a certain skill level.

This isn’t really a jazz album though - to me it’s the purest definition of jazz fusion, which was essential for me crossing over from listening to over-the-top prog rock and punk right into the warm embrace of jazz. The guitar on this album goes from sounding like several different horns to being the main melodic force that a singer would bring to the table; but it is still unmistakably a guitar, a force flying over the rest of the band instead of plowing through the middle. As much as this album is focused on six strings, the rest of the band that Beck hired were really at his level if not higher. Max Middleton (who had played with Beck for years at this point) on Fender Rhodes and Clavinet, Wilbur Bascomb on bass, and Narada Michael Walden on drums are all names you might not know because they’ve had their careers mostly behind the scenes rather than in front of the curtain, but these are the men with most of the songwriting credits on the album, with six out of the eight - Jeff Beck doesn’t have a single writing credit on this album, just his name on the front cover. The other credits go to Jan Hammer, who wrote and plays synthesizers on the song "Blue Wind," and right in the middle of the first side, a rendition of Charles Mingus’ "Goodbye Pork Pie Hat," that if you’re not careful might just cause you to shed a tear.

Track by track this album is all killer and no filler, clocking in at a super tight 38 minutes, and it feels like you got chewed up and spit out by the end of it. The opening track "Led Boots" starts with a slightly off drum groove that fades in backed by big chords, then punches you with the main bass line and theme. The guitar comes in and sounds like a fighter plane flying over the field before a baseball game, spraying all the stuff into the air to make the colored clouds. It stands the test of time as a great album opener and cements the tone of the album. "Come Dancing" keeps the feel going, laying more on the back side of the beat rather than being in your face. How a song that grooves the way it does and yet flows seamlessly into "Goodbye Pork Pie Hat" still amazes me. Their rendition of the classic Mingus track is something to marvel in. This was the first time I had heard anything written by the prolific bassist, and to say it changed me is an understatement. I had no idea it was a jazz classic the first time I heard this version, to me it was just the best rock ballad I’d heard at the time. The guitar and keys melt into a stew of sonic pleasure and tone that play to each other’s strengths unlike anything else. The feedback of the guitar plays a major role - it is the atmosphere and aroma that take make you want to sit down and enjoy the musical meal the band just put all of their emotion into. It’s tough to imagine ending an album after this song - though Mingus did the same thing, put it on the first side of the record right in the middle - but before this side is over there is the undeniable bass playing on "Head for the Backstage." The bass playing on both of those tracks starts along the same path of Larry Graham, but it took a detour, got lost, and came back with treasure.

Unfortunately the back half isn’t as visceral as the first, but there is still so much that you can’t deny on this album. "Blue Wind" starts off side two and it’s got a slightly slower, but way brighter, Deep Purple feel with its driving energy. On the last few tracks, "Sophie" and "Play With Me" are derivative of Funkadelic in the best ways, and "Love is Green" lets you down lightly after you’ve been shaken by the funk madness.

This album has been my favorite Jeff Beck for as long as I can remember because there is so much of the human element in it. It’s still easy to be able to hear how hungry he is, and how he doesn’t want to settle for what he’s already done. The direction he chose may not have brought him the same success as his other Yardbirds graduates, but his voice is richer and more flavorful than every other guitar player out there.

-         Max Kaufman

I'd Love to Turn You On #2: Charles Mingus - The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady

We spend so much of our time buying, selling and listening to the latest releases that we sometimes forget to plumb the depths. Every one of us here got in to record store thing, at some level, because we have a deep interest and curiosity about all kinds of music. Most of us are collectors to some degree or another, and one of the abiding joys of collecting is to pull out the rare, beautiful, little known or downright obscure album and turn on a friend. Sometimes it's a classic that needs to be shined up and put back on the top shelf. With that in mind we are going to revive a column we used to include in our newsletters called, appropriately enough, I'd Love To Turn You On. This will give our super collectors and musical academicians to wax poetic about their favorite albums (or movie or book for that matter).

When I was a teenager and started getting into jazz, I was told to check out Charles Mingus. The title The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady stuck out in my mind—it was very evocative, but of what? After a shift at Twist & Shout, where I had just started working, I took a copy to the listening station and put it on. The first track of the album-length composition started off with a repeated drum figure, then the full band came in with some of the most hauntingly beautiful harmonies I'd ever heard. This was all I needed to hear—I bought the disc and went home. Over the next few months, I listened to it repeatedly. I turned my friends onto it. We all sat around listening to this amazing music over and over again. I came to know it so well that I could sing along to all the solos and hear the tape edits. Still, it was mysterious and maintained its power. How was this music created?

That was almost 10 years ago. As my relationship with music has changed and grown, a lot of it that I once loved has lost importance. Mingus music and Black Saint in particular have not. Charlie Mariano's alto saxophone solos still send chills down my spine, even as I understand more how they are constructed. The rhythm section interplay between Mingus and drummer Dannie Richmond seems even richer to me now that I've experienced such interaction first hand. This album is an inexhaustible document. It is music that transcends genre—as Mingus asserts in the liner notes, it “is part of a very old idea that someday all good music will return from its assorted labels which inhibit it with fashions [and] styles...” I feel the reason for this transcendence is its emotional content. It is not an attempt at “making jazz” or merely a cerebral exercise.

Much of the parts that I used to think of as “hooks” are, I can see now, improvised by the musicians. But they are a result of Mingus' compositional choices—selecting a band, rehearsing with them, setting up situations that call out for these sorts of responses. Mingus again: “Charles Mariano knew tears of sound were what was the intended thought in the background and what also was meant to come out of his alto solo. No words or example were needed to convey this idea to Charles Mariano. Only his love of living and knowing life...”

There's not much else to say about this album except, check it out. It was formative and, I suppose, life-changing for me. I've talked to all kinds of people—huge jazz fans and people who barely listen to jazz—who feel the same way.
--Ian Douglas-Moore