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

What Are You Listening to Lately (Part 12)?

King Sunny Ade – Juju Music
At first I didn't love this one the way I do now - subtler dynamics and a hook value somewhat lower than Ade and Martin Meissonier's subsequent outings for Island meant that it took longer to sink in. But after much acclimatization to Sunny Ade's catalog, it's easier to hear how this fits in as a particularly brilliant sampler of what he was doing around the time on his own before Meissonier put his hands in and added some Western touches to attune it more to the Euro-American sensibilities they hoped to hook into. Not too much though - this one's a good halfway point between the uncut Juju that brought Ade to fame and fortune in his native Nigeria and throughout Western Africa and the more pointedly Western stuff that failed to break him on a Marley-like scale Stateside and in Europe. All songs are good to great - more consistent than Synchro System if not quite as dynamic and about equal to the overall quality of much more Euro-African synthesis of the great and underrated Aura (though this one's way more Afro- than Euro-). "Ja Funmi" is one of the highest points I've heard in his catalog, kicking the album off right. And it never lets up afterward, even if the dense synthesizer forest of "Sunny Ti De Ariya" and the English lyrics of "365 Is My Number/The Message" are the only times afterward that it really makes major marks as standout tunes again. But it's high quality across the board, even if it sometimes - here's that subtlety again - doesn't exactly stand up and announce the differences in tracks. There isn't a part of this I don't enjoy at any time of day or night, especially when it's played loud (as it should be).

Miles Davis – The Musings of Miles
A really interesting and a unique, if not wholly exciting, item in the Miles catalog for a few reasons. First - it's from just before his triumphant return to public form at the Newport Festival in 1955 and shows him working at the peak of his 1950's style. Second - it's on the cusp of the formation of his First Quintet and has all the stylistic marks of that era of his development. Third - great song selection and pacing, starting with mid-tempo and ballad numbers then slowly speeding up over the course of the record and closing again with a nice ballad. Fourth, and most importantly - it's a quartet, just Miles and rhythm. There is nowhere else in his entire catalog where you get to hear him so nakedly and clearly without another horn drawing your interest away (especially since he had such a knack for picking really great players to work alongside him). But back to song selection a moment, where I'd like to point out his very interesting "A Night in Tunisia," in which Miles craftily dodges the part where every saxophone player has to take on "the famous alto break" if they're gonna tackle the song, and Miles just slyly makes it his own, giving a nod to Charlie Parker and then doing his own thing with it. As much as I enjoy the rest of the record, a good if not outstanding one in the catalog, this is the highlight. And it's that not-outstanding-ness of the rest of the record that keeps it hovering somewhere better than good, but not quite great. It's all well-done, it's all enjoyable, but only on "Tunisia" does it blindside you with surprises, even if I dig his Monk-answer "I Didn't" and other parts quite a bit.

Funkadelic – Let’s Take It to the Stage
George Clinton and Co. are rarely perfect at album length. Their best ones always leave you a spot or two where you can run to the kitchen and get the snacks; where you'll skip to the next track; where you won't bother ripping some songs to your Ipod; and this one is no exception. That said, I enjoy it all even if not all equally. I count four great ones and six lesser ones, including the lengthy Bernie Worrell organ and synth workout with George's dirty mouth embedded deep down in the intro. But the overall mood is great; off the cuff nasty, funky, funny, soulful, rocking - everything you'd ask of these guys (and gals). And it's perhaps the best representation of their late-Westbound period; the point where they'd given up on the extended druggy drones of the early albums but had not yet achieved the slicker sound of their Warner Bros. years. It starts out great, hits another winner with the utterly un-P.C. "No Head No Backstage Pass," scores a classic to close the A with "Get Off Your Ass And Jam" and then opens the B with the almost Gothic-metal "Baby I Owe You Something Good." These four great ones are surrounded by fun, by funk, and by as solid an outing as they'd make under the name Funkadelic (and yes, I'm including Maggot Brain) or would make until One Nation Under A Groove. Pretty great, but not perfect - and isn't that more or less what you'd expect from George?