953 - Miles Davis 'At Carnegie Hall - The Complete Concert' (1961)

My Rating: 2.64 out of 5

1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die: X

Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums: X

The Mojo Collection: X

Chart Peak (UK/US): --/59

Favourite Tracks: Meaning Of The Blues/Lament, New Rhumba
Least-Favourite Tracks: Oleo

I’ve never seen a greatest album list that didn’t feature at least one Miles Davis record but by the same token I’ve never seen one that featured this particular album either. And there’s a reason for that… it’s really not one of his best.

So why, considering all the classic Miles Davis albums out there, did the people who voted for the All-Time Top 1000 Albums choose this one? Well, for jazz fans it represented something of a historical event; Miles did countless live performances over the years but he only ever did two concerts alongside his celebrated collaborator Gil Evans. Yet as an archive of this momentous occasion, the original 1961 live album was flawed because it only included half the concert. Then after four decades or so, someone at the record label finally twigged that it might be a good idea to reissue an expanded version of the album that featured the complete show. This new 2-CD edition caused something of a stir with jazzers on its release in 1998, which coincidentally was when the All-Time Top 1000 book was being compiled and hence it grabbed a good deal more votes than it might in polls nowadays.

Like many teenagers I was a music nut. Back in the vinyl days I used to head into London’s West End every weekend & scour the second-hand record shops looking for anything interesting (and cheap). I’m not sure why, but one day I returned home with a brand new Miles Davis LP – Porgy & Bess. It was the first jazz album I’d ever bought & like many new listeners, the combination of Gil Evans’ lush orchestral arrangements & Miles’ melancholic trumpet solos soon had me under their spell. So I was very much looking forward to hearing this album, but have to report that I found it rather disappointing. First & foremost the recording quality is simply not good enough; the first horn blast of opening track So What squawks painfully out of the speakers and throughout the album unpleasant distortion occurs whenever Davis hits the high notes. Of course it doesn’t help that his trumpet is placed so piercingly loud in the mix. You can be pretty damn sure that Miles insisted on being the loudest thing onstage but the overloaded sound & the volume hike every time we move from a sax or piano solo to his trumpet just ruins almost every song.

Next disappointment for me was the lack of Gil Evans. Having gone to all the trouble of assembling his orchestra & installing them all onstage, Davis curiously leaves them twiddling their thumbs for most of the concert & only employs them on a handful of songs. OK we do get the 17 minute long Concierto de Aranjuez but considering it was such a rare event for him & Evans to perform live together, I did expect to hear more than 3 songs with full orchestration.

As for the content, well naturally there are some terrific performances here (especially from saxophonist Hank Mobley) but on the whole it has the niggling feel of a greatest hits run-through. Perhaps that shouldn’t be surprising considering the nature of a Carnegie Hall audience, but I still felt that some of the playing was a little scrappy and often lacked the intensity & emotiveness of the studio recordings. Apparently the day before the concert, Davis had peevishly decided that he didn’t want to perform & even refused permission for the event to be recorded. That might explain the uncharacteristically aggressive edge to his playing on this album. It certainly explains the poor sound quality as some reviews state that the recording had to be secretly captured using a few microphones hidden onstage. Either way, I'd say this is one for Miles Davis buffs only.

954 - Tim Buckley 'Happy Sad' (1968)

My Rating: 2.00 out of 5

1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die: √

Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums: X

The Mojo Collection: X

Chart Peak (UK/US): --/81

Favourite Tracks: Love From Room 109 At The Islander
Least-Favourite Tracks: Gypsy Woman

Happy Sad proved an appropriate title for an album that offered up such a pleasing first half yet such a disappointing second. It was a scorching hot day so I stuck this on whilst stretched out in a shady corner of the garden and it soon seemed like the perfect setting. Strange Feelin’ kicks things off oh-so gently with languorous marimbas & a meandering double bass and the track strolls along as if it has all the time in the world; an electric guitar solos lazily, the vibes plink-plonk for a while and the effect is all rather serene. Wait a minute though… isn’t that tune lifted from Miles Davis’ All Blues? And what about those marimbas & double-bass – is this a jazz album Mr Buckley? Well no, not really; the musicians clearly aren’t “jazzers” but what they lack in technical proficiency, they more than make up for in feeling. So this is something of a folk-jazz hybrid and for a while at least, quite a successful one.

The album’s highpoint was Love From Room 109 At The Islander (On Pacific Coast Highway), a big mouthful of a title that signals an equally large-proportioned song. Weighing in at a hefty 11 minutes or so, this epic track starts off like some acoustic session by The Doors (complete with its Yes The River Knows-style guitar break) yet soon morphs into something quite unique. The tempo plummets to a funereal pace and a complicated melody starts weaving its way around scratchy violins & the sound of a crashing sea. It’s a song with a loose organic structure, as if the band members are composing it on a Ouija board, all pushing it in a certain direction yet never quite knowing who is in overall control nor where they will heading next. And yet, it works. And back in the days when music emanated from those grooves in black vinyl
it would have closed out “side one” with a flourish.

However that minimalist, organic technique continues into “side two” and here it begins to show its limitations. Gypsy Woman feels particularly under-produced; a song whose naked ambition outstrips its naked arrangement, it flounders flimsily under Buckley’s impassioned cries, like Kenny G doing a cover of Metallica. The unstructured approach, so successful on Love From Room 109 fails dismally here and the song lurches along aimlessly like some drunken, drummer-less jam session. As for Buckley’s vocal histrionics, well when The Flight Of The Conchords do it it’s funny, but here the falsetto swoops, growls & off-key vibrato are just irritating. With a 12 minute runtime, make that bloody irritating.

I was a bit disappointed with Tim Buckley’s singing. I’d read dozens of glowing reviews and Allmusic has dubbed him “one of the great rock vocalists of the 1960s” but on the evidence of this album I can’t agree. For a start he has a “gnarrrrey” timbre coupled with a wavering pitch that can make him sound a bit like Mr Bean gargling. Stylistically inconsistent, his voice also seemed a little short of range & struggled to jump through the many flaming hoops Buckley placed in front of it.

I also felt many reviewers overstated the poeticism of the lyrics. Take Strange Feelin’; “Well it's just like a mockingbird a-singing on a hillside / Chirping at his morning song / But don't you weep don't you fret don't you wail don't you moan / Can't you hear that whippoorwill a-callin? / Now don't you worry / Your daddy's comin' home / He's gonna chase those blues away”. Yes Buckley evokes typical pastoral “poetic” imagery, birdsongs, mountain breezes & the like, but allied to rock clichés like “your daddy” & “chasing the blues away” the sentiments often seemed woolly & rather hollow. The exception being Dream Letter where Buckley uses much simpler language yet suggests much deeper emotion; “All I need to know tonight / How are you and my child? / Oh is he a soldier / or is he a dreamer? / Is he mama's little man? / Does he help you when he can? / Oh does he ask about me?” OK we know he’s talking about his estranged son Jeff & the tragedy that surrounded both their lives certainly adds an extra dimension, yet I still found it a powerful song about the genuine anguish & regrets of a broken family.

Just 6 songs here so the original 1968 LP was neatly divided into 3 tracks per side. And if I had owned this album on vinyl, it would have been one of those where side one was covered in scratches & fingerprints, yet side two would have remained forever in shiny mint condition. Happy Sad indeed.

955 - Jack Bruce 'Songs For A Tailor' (1969)

My Rating: 3.00 out of 5

1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die: X

Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums: X

The Mojo Collection: √

Chart Peak (UK/US): 6/55

Favourite Tracks: Rope Ladder To The Moon, He The Richmond
Least-Favourite Tracks: Boston Ball Game 1967, The Ministry Of Bag

Very 60s, this one. My first listen was as I cycled alongside the Grand Union canal & within a few minutes I was transported into some kitchen-sink drama; the industrial landscape around the half-finished Olympic stadium faded out into black & white & I half-expected a youthful Rita Tushingham to wave at me from one of the rusty iron bridges. It’s funny how the 60s, 70s, 80s and even 90s all have their own distinct signature sounds. Can’t think what the signature sound of the 00s will be though; perhaps an anonymous voice singing through Auto-tune accompanied by the shuffling noise of marketing men rubbing their clammy hands together & the distant rumble of Simon Cowell’s wallet dragging on the ground? But this album is almost the antithesis of today’s music – it’s unrefined, unpredictable and credits its listeners with having more intelligence than a goldfish – all of which makes it refreshingly enjoyable.

It kicks off with Never Tell Your Mother She’s Out Of Tune – all squawking horns & grimy distorted bass like a cross between Blood, Sweat & Tears, Spirit & some wacky incidental music from The Prisoner. The reviews I’d read referred to this album as ‘jazz-rock’ but I’d say ‘art-rock’ was a more accurate description. For me, jazz-rock conjures up images of Miles Davis in kooky shades or John Mclaughlin grappling a guitar with about 27 necks. I suppose I’m confusing jazz-rock with fusion but however you want to describe this record, it’s certainly more about rock than jazz.

I wasn’t all that familiar with Jack Bruce - I know Cream’s big hits of course but that didn’t prepare me for this album which grew on me the more it went on. Unusual chord progressions steer songs like Tickets To Waterfalls into odd directions, yet whenever it seems to be heading too far into the unconventional we get a delightfully melodic line to haul us back from the brink. Having spent my formative years listening to a lot of avant-garde material, I was especially taken with Rope Ladder To The Moon which with its dark acoustic guitars, melancholic scratchy cellos & angular vocal melodies seemed to have more in common with acts like the Art Bears than any conventional rock outfit.

Lyrically it’s rather a poetic album but that’s not to say it’s portentous or overblown; there’s some quasi-psychedelic quirkiness with lines like “The cook’s jumped in the river / The menu smells of feet” (from The Ministry Of Bag) but generally the words seem heartfelt and, to me at least, rather profound. Weird Of Hermiston has “Skies are no longer a comfort / Leaves turning black with the autumn / The corn is hung down with the heaviest weight that I’m feeling” while on He The Richmond Bruce sings “Yes my name it is written in the sand / And it can’t escape your sweeping hand”; worthy of Brian Wilson that one & a league above the standard flimsy pop/rock sentiments. (Having just researched a little further, I’ve discovered that the lyricist Pete Brown also penned the words for Cream’s hits & published poetry too so that explains a lot).

For all its inventiveness, the album doesn’t always hit the mark. Boston Ball Game 1967 is a bit of a mess, The Ministry Of Bag sounds musically like something dragged from the KPM archives & the jam-session second half of To Isengard drifts perilously close to Derek Smalls’ Jazz Odyssey. But I’d gladly listen to any of them on a 24 hour tape loop ahead of anything that Mr Cowell digs up during the rest of this decade.

989 - Bob Dylan 'Bootleg Series, Vol.4: The "Royal Albert Hall" Concert' (1966)

My Rating: 2.00 out of 5

1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die: √

Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums: X

The Mojo Collection: X

Chart Peak (UK/US): 19/31

Favourite Tracks: Ballad Of A Thin Man, Baby Let Me Follow You Down
Least-Favourite Track: Visions Of Johanna

Dylan's got thirteen albums in the top 1000 & I have to confess that I've never listened to any of them. I could never quite equate the nasal'ey droning voice & one-man band style with the god-like status heaped on him by every music critic, so I was hoping that listening to this album would finally show me what I've been missing.

The first half of this live album (i.e., the opening set of the gig) delivered exactly what I expected - stereotypical Bob & his acoustic guitar & harmonica. Now, I like melodic acoustic songs but I found the music here very uninspiring; basic open guitar chords repeated at length with little or no variation (we're talking 11 minutes of Desolation Row & a 9 min rendition of Mr Tambourine Man) with a bit of harmonica ubiquitously lumped on the end. One thing I never realised before was that he's such a terrible harmonica player - his solos didn't seem to have any pattern or direction, or indeed purpose. To me, the music just seemed to be a conduit for his words (in much the same way as John Cooper Clarke used to recite his poetry over backing tracks). The lyrics were very impressive - intelligent & poetic - but I must admit I didn't have clue what the songs were about. Listening to them at face value, without knowledge of the metaphorical meaning, it often just felt like a collection of pretty rhymes.

Halfway through the album I was beginning to regret my pledge to listen to every LP all the way through but then he kicks off the second set & suddenly he's transformed himself from folk troubadour into The Doors. This was the moment when he came back on with an explosive rock band & drove the folkies away in disgust. This is more like it; the band are rocking out & the songs really come alive. Someone in the crowd shouts "Judas!" but listening to this half of the album it's pretty obvious why Dylan went 'electric' - he was probably just bored to death of doing the same old routine. An interesting historical document, but not an album that I will be returning to in a hurry.

994 - Miles Davis 'Someday My Prince Will Come' (1961)

My Rating: 3.83 out of 5

1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die: X

Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums: X

The Mojo Collection: X

Chart Peak (UK/US): --/--

Favourite Tracks: Old Folks, Drad Dog
Least-Favourite Tracks: Teo

This album has scored pretty well in comparison to the others which may suggest some kind of pro-jazz bias on my part, though that really isn't the case. It's really more to do with the nature of a top 1000 list largely comprised of rock & pop; as Colin Larkin explains in the book's introduction "most jazz votes are from rock fans who like a bit of jazz". What that means is that the few jazz albums that make the list actually tend to be pretty good ones. And as it's all ranked according to public votes & jazz has a minority appeal, those good jazz albums are always going to be found in the lower levels of the chart.

As with every album so far, this was the first time I had listened to this LP. Like Davis' much-heralded (or should I say much-trumpeted? Errr no, maybe not) Kind Of Blue, this record has distinct crossover appeal; there's no difficult rhythms or dissonant solos, it's just a laidback & melodic jazz album that flows well from start to finish. As you'd expect, Davis is in fine form throughout, though I did feel that his muted trumpet was a little too high in the mix sometimes & could sound a little piercing. Pianist Wynton Kelly was the standout musican for me & I really wanted to hear a lot more of him than I got. I also felt that both Davis & John Coltrane missed the mark on Teo - neither soloist really seemed to complement what the rest of the band were playing & so the whole thing got a bit bogged down (which is a shame as the track had a lot of potential to really go somewhere special). Of course 'proper' jazz fans would shoot me down in flames for suggesting such a thing but luckily nobody but me is reading this so I can say anything I like. In short, if you like Kind Of Blue (and you're not a jazz snob) you'll like this album.