Jeff Beck - Performing This Week...Live At Ronnie Scotts
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Free Music Notes for Performing This Week...Live At Ronnie Scotts
Free Music Review: Essential and pleasurable, audio and visual experience
Hit: 5 Stars
Rolling Stone might rank him 14 in the all time greats, but this DVD shows a brilliant guitarist and musician producing an incredibly wonderful audio performance in the context of a cabaret setting that is a also a fascinating visual experience. It is complemented with an after-match interview that gives life to a Syd Barrett-like genius. Audio-wise, it is jazz/rock/blues that is wonderful and variable background music at times for dining, at times cranked up to max volume while one moves about the house doing bloody housework, or when one just sits and takes off with. Pick your tracks. Incredible sounds and slickness that even excede Rory Gallagher, and that differentiate him from Clapton's rolling blues, and that show why this reclusive or socially avoidant character is arguably the greatest guitar wrencher of all time. Subtle blues/jazz and sheer raw musical noise. His feeling for blues and jazz is very clear and wonderfully demonstrated. The visual is fascinating, showing a public-shunning odd fellow interacting with his loved and fantastic band. The rhythmical and striking drums, the slick and blues drenched keyboards and sublime bass all make a wonderful "evening". Check out a brief moment on Angie when the student(bass player Tal Wilkenfield) moves close to the mentor, and Beck briefly reaches across to the neck of her guitar and controls a few beats. Cute. He can do small room, close company, big sound. Interesting too, this background man does a voice. Of course he can't sing (Rod Stewart and Truth certainly compensated for that) but the interview was fascinating. Mmmm. Not sure about Jeff and Eric, but I think Jeff and Jimmy were on the same Page, excuse the pun. Tracks? All so different,and rich. He always went for sick over slick. I'm a old rocker and jazz is less familiar so I'll show my colours. Beck's Bolero opening is a warmer and shows Jimmy's admiration, and he was there in the audience. And Lennon's A Day in the Life, well who the hell would try such a piece of poetry, but it rolled beautifully. (Hey, those who know New Zealand, try fantastic musician David Kilgour, ex-Clean, and poet Sam Hunt for the CD, really good). The two guest female vocal tracks seemed almost out of place, but nice. And the two with Eric were great but didn't need to be there? In short, buy this to hear, watch and learn....and enjoy. Remarkable.
Free Music Review: Ain't nobody better alive today
Hit: 5 Stars
So how do you rank great guitar players? By style, personal musical preference, media coverage? I suppose that's an individual's prerogative. I know many non-musicians who rank players by reputation and sometimes that's not accurate, especially with Eric Clapton, who is the world's most overrated guitarist in this guitar player's opinion.
I would have to classify by overall depth and just plain personality, and for my money, the greatest guitarist of all time was Chet Atkins. Nobody had a broader understanding of music in general, all styles and history. For my money, Jeff Beck is the greatest living guitarist, and one of very few, if any, true peers of Jimi Hendrix. It is well known that Hendrix marveled at Beck's work with the Jeff Beck Group and his landmark album "Truth".
However, because Jeff chose to record when and how he preferred, never considering massive commercial appeal, his reputation has been somewhat limited to the musical community, but in that sense, that same reputation is much higher than just about anybody else, including Van Halen, Steve Vai or Joe Satriani. The problem with these type of players was a lack of depth and reliance on overkill and endless wanking that made them ultimately boring after a while.
Jeff has never succumbed to the wanker mentality, nor, as Van Halen, has he abused drugs and alcohol to the point of nearly killing his talent. As "Performing This Week . . ." demonstrates, Beck doesn't merely play - he feels every note, and every sound he coaxes from his axe is under complete control with a delicate touch unparalleled in music today. Jazzy, noisy, metallic, symphonic, bluesy - all melt into a style only a true master could create.
Every tune is great, with highlights including Tal Wilkenfeld's great bass solo on "Because We've Ended As Lovers", the furious "Scatterbrain" and "Led Boots", and the whammy and slide work of "Angels(Footsteps)" and the set closer, his now classic "Where Were You". The sound is great, the band smokes, and once again guitarists should meekly return their instruments to the pawn shop or get to serious work if they ever hope to even glimpse at the heights this great man has already achieved. A no excuse for not owning CD if there ever was one.
Free Music Review: Review of Jeff Beck's Live at Ronnie Scotts
Hit: 5 Stars
Bloody ripper album. Great to hear Jeff in full flight in a live setting and get a taste of just how subtle, nuanced, and rip-snortin' he is live without any studio smoke 'n mirrors. Mind you, he has a reputation for using minimal special effects within or without the studio. It's all in the fingers. What control. What expression. Christ this guy can play. The consumate Euro rock guitarist. So damn good, he can't seem to play in a normal rock format - i.e. with singer in tow. Of course he kinda made the transition to jazz-rock but has remained essentially in the rock camp playing what would have to be described as "instrumental rock" rather than "jazz rock". Thank god he didn't get into wanky spiritualism and paradoxalism such as afflicted the jazz rockers - e.g. "return to ... forever", "visions of the emerald ... beyond", etc, etc. Of course all these guys were in thrall to Jimminy "Cricket" Hendrix and wanted to get a taste of unleashing that kind of sonic power. Jeff might have been a bit in thrall to the Jimster himself. But Jeff was there right at the start right along with Jimminy, Eric, Green, Page, etc. He was, perhaps more than any other Euro guitarist, the main guy to create the language of rock guitar. And more than any other, he took it somewhere else. Check out Nadia for a taste of what Jeff can do with micro-tones. Great to hear some of the old material getting a workout. Only disappointment I guess is a lack of new stuff. Be good to hear some great new tunes in the hands of the maestro. Interesting to speculate on what the Stones might have sounded like had Jeff joined at the time instead of Ronnie. I don't imagine he would have stuck around forever but it would have been fun to hear a couple of Stones disks with Jeff slashing and burning along with the riff-maester.Free Music Review: Sonic Diamonds
Hit: 5 Stars
I have been a fan of Jeff's since as long as I can remember. I was gigging as an electric guitarist for many years, and as time went on, the number of top electric guitarists I really enjoyed began to dwindle, until finally Beck was left standing almost alone at the pinnacle. He keeps reinventing himself, and that quality is rare, especially since many find it necessary to keep doing their safe expected material in order to keep the fans that allow them to make a living. I suppose that being a custom car builder has freed him from some of those pressures.
He manages to cover the entire spectrum of expression, from a quietly poignant melody all the way to a thunderous roar. After having heard his recordings for many years, I finally was lucky enough to catch him live here in the states one night. I consider it to be one of the greatest concerts of my entire life, and I've heard some good ones. He was on fire all night.
Much later, I remember seeing his Crossroads show performance on TV. It was very good, no surprise, but with the enormous crowd, he actually seemed a tiny bit nervous. And I remember seeing what seemed to be a very drunk Bill Murray introducing him to the audience, which was quite amusing. I was glad to have seen Jeff in a more relaxed setting.
I have many recordings of him, and have followed his every style change. It would be easy to become jaded. But as I listened to this recording, even though the material was all familiar, I was somehow re-stunned, and it brought back memories of that special show. After awhile, the image that came to mind was of him walking along carrying a huge bag of diamonds, just tossing handfuls of them to anyone that he saw. Glittering diamonds of creativity and sound.
Free Music Review: Artistry Personified
Hit: 5 Stars
No matter how many times you hear Jeff play the same song it really doesn't matter because a true artist expresses themselves in the moment. Jeff has a voice on his guitar and that separates the special musicians from everyone else. I just saw him live down under in Brisbane on the 29th Jan 2009 and he essentially played the material on this album. It is a shame that his writing and arranging are so often overlooked as they deserve more credit. This album is a compilation of some of Jeff's finest works and I would highly recommend it to anyone. I think Jeff is getting better as he ages and unlike many professional musicians Jeff maintains the integrity and quality in his work. His band as usual rounds out the sound with virtuosic drumming from Vinnie Colaiuta(used to love him when he played with Zappa). Vinnie just has a rolling light sound and has a vocabulary on the drums that is so varied it is hard to know where all those ideas keep spawning from. Tal Wilkenfeld on bass is excellent but I feel plays a little too softly at times, and Jason Rebello on keyboards has some outstanding solo moments. This is a complete album with no bad tracks. It is not really fair to single out any particular tracks but I like the slower tracks such as Cause We've Ended As Lovers, Nadia, Goodbye Pork Pie Hat / Bush With The Blues but Beck's Bolero and Scatterbrain are equally lifting. Music does not get much purer with great writing, melody, harmony, playing and arranging. It's all there. The thing with Jeff is you don't even notice his guitar playing you just hear the music. Enjoy :)