Jeff Beck - One Those London Nights

This three-night stint at the Festival Hall is a rare live outing for Jeff Beck, but the largely reclusive genius of Britrock guitar takes to the stage with the glee of a teenager. Dressed in black vest, displaying a muscular physique, he has his white Stratocaster slung low on his hip as he grins, chews gum and unleashes a fusillade of diamond-cutting riffs.
This three-night stint at the Festival Hall is a rare live outing for Jeff Beck, but the largely reclusive genius of Britrock guitar takes to the stage with the glee of a teenager. Dressed in black vest, displaying a muscular physique, he has his white Stratocaster slung low on his hip as he grins, chews gum and unleashes a fusillade of diamond-cutting riffs. With his pudding-basin haircut unchanged since he first wrought several shades of six-stringed mayhem with the Yardbirds, it's hard to forget that Jeff was the role model for Christopher Guest's Nigel Tufnel in seminal rock comedy This Is Spinal Tap. The back projection – archive photos of Beck in his pomp or relaxing at home with his prized vintage hot rods – underlines the connection. But in a selection from his two outstanding recent albums Who Else? and You Had it Coming, he combines his hobby and his art in a way that would have Tufnel scratching his head in disbelief. Beck's flashy technique and sharp changes of gear provide customised thrills as his guitar replicates the sound of blaring horns or roaring engines. At one points he stops, orchestrating the band so that the musical bridge is provided by the sound of an old jalopy setting off on a race projected on the big screen. The sublime followed the ridiculous with his truly awesome rendition of Charles Mingus's "Goodbye Pork Pie Hat". Versatility and ability to stretch the parameters of any genre have always been Beck's calling card, and tonight is the perfect setting for him. Duelling with a percussionist, he unleashes mind-blowing modal scales, plays fat electric skank when the band dip into a loping reggae offbeat, and adds scorching New Age funk to computerised beats on a selection from his hip hop-inflected Guitar Shop album. He's always been an enthusiastic sideman rather than a bandleader, so it's not surprising that Beck's choice of guest stars can be a bit wayward. The declamatory vocalist Imogen Heap and the turgid Roger Waters are the ice to his fire, and lukewarm water was the result. But he finds the perfect partners in the garage-blues duo the White Stripes, reactivating a selection of Yardbirds hits ("Evil-hearted You", "Heart Full Of Soul" and "Lost Woman") with zeal and menace. Jack and Meg White looked vaguely embarrassed when they returned for the final all-star "Hi Ho Silver Lining" singalong, but their earlier contribution insured that Beck's generation-transcending vitality shone brightly.

SOURCE	AUD	SOUND QUALITY	A	FORMAT	Mp3	BITRATE	160	TRACKS #	2
LOCATION / VENUE		London		Royal Festival Hall		DATE		12 Sept 02
NOTES:

Nigel Kennedy Quintet - Late Night Proms

For the past few years Kennedy has been living in Poland, exploring the country's rich musical heritage - and he has also been teaming up with some of Poland's finest jazz musicians, the fruits of which you can hear now.

As that cheeky geezer Nige might have said, not a bad effing evening, even allowing for the long-winded jazzy stuff. How often do we have the chance to savour Elgar's Violin Concerto and then hear the same soloist work his way through a set of jazz-rock numbers? I suppose that the next logical step would be to set about playing the Elgar on an electric violin. (Memo to starry-eyed Proms organisers: that was just a joke. Please, please don't take me seriously.)
In all honesty, to this jazzer's ears, the orchestral part of the evening proved much more engaging. While Kennedy's impassioned, even reckless performance created the illusion that the Elgar had come direct from the composer's pen, the late Prom - featuring the violinist's Polish band - had a distinctly secondhand aura to it. When the guitar hero Jeff Beck made an unexpected entrance midway through Hills of Saturn the penny dropped: this was the kind of music that would have set hearts aflutter in 1968 but which now sounded undeniably tame.
There's still much to admire in Kennedy's efforts to open classical listeners' ears to other traditions, and to jettison some of the starchier aspects of concert hall protocol. Yes, the swearing was juvenile, but the unshockable Promenaders chuckled indulgently and the conductor Paul Daniel was happy to play along with the violinist's banter about the late arrival of the concerto score.
It was just a pity that there was not more of a shock factor to the late show. Kennedy's latest recording - the self-mockingly titled A Very Nice Album - drifts amiably enough through some undemanding, Latin-tinged electric jazz and folk-rock without ever threatening to catch fire. The same was true of the live version, the leader delivering extended solos whose formulaic phrasing and fuzzy tone often left you wondering why he didn't simply hire a moderately talented guitarist instead. His passion for Jimi Hendrix was given full rein on the hard-driving Third Stone from the Sun. While the guest singer Xantoné Blacq emerged from the wings on the upbeat Carnivore of the Animals, his contribution was almost entirely inaudible.
Tomasz Grzegorski made a few pithy interjections on tenor and added ominous touches on bass clarinet, but the rest of the band was content to sit in Kennedy's shadow. I had hoped that he would think again before trying to reprise the painfully unfunny, strangulated vocals of Boo Boooz Blooooze, but he plunged ahead regardless. Once again, the audience refused to be shocked. What's wrong with these classical music lovers? Don't they know they're supposed to be square?

Nigel Kennedy: violin
Tomasz Grzegorski: saxophone
Piotr Wyleol: piano
Adam Kowalewski: double bass
Pawel Dobrowolski: percussion
with Xantone Blacq: singer

- Intros
- Donovan
- Nice bottle of Beaujolais Ain't it
- Cloud / Oh Man
- Hills of Saturn featuring Jeff Beck
- Korania Blues
- Carnival of the Animals
- Third Stone from the sun

SOURCE	DAB	SOUND QUALITY	A+	FORMAT	Mp3	BITRATE	256	TRACKS #	8
LOCATION / VENUE		London		Royal Albert Hall		DATE		19–07–08
NOTES:		Picture by Elsie Stockdale

Jeff Beck: Sophisticated Guitar Heroe

Like many rock musicians in the early 1960s, Jeff Beck began his career working as a session guitarist. In 1965, following a gig with the Tridents, Beck was recruited to join the Yardbirds (after Eric Clapton had left the group for John Mayall's Bluesbreakers). It was during his tenure with The Yardbirds that they recorded most of their hits. He became known for smashing his guitar on stage, and his guitar-smashing antics can be seen in the 1966 film, Blowup. In 1966, he shared the dual-lead guitar role with Jimmy Page. His time with The Yardbirds was short, allowing Beck only one full album, Roger the Engineer (1966); Beck left after 18 months, partly for health reasons.

While on the surface Beck seems to have departed the group because of his health, Jimmy Page, who had been invited into the band in 1966 by Beck himself, tells a different story:

Beck went on to form a second incarnation of the Jeff Beck Group, which featured Clive Chaman (bass), Max Middleton (keyboards), Cozy Powell (drums), and Bob Tench (vocals). This group took Beck in a new direction with increased levels of sophistication, entailing a varied melding of rock/pop with elements of R&B and jazz. They released two albums: Rough And Ready (1971, produced by Jeff Beck) and The Jeff Beck Group (1972, this produced by Steve Cropper). After this second Jeff Beck Group disbanded in 1972, Beck formed the power trio Beck, Bogert & Appice, with Carmine Appice on drums and Tim Bogert on bass. This group, too, failed to attract much critical attention and soon split up, although they did have a minor hit with a version of Stevie Wonder's "Superstition" (Beck had earlier played lead guitar on Wonder's Talking Book album). In 1975, Beck did a solo, all-instrumental jazz fusion album entitled Blow by Blow which received unexpectedly positive critical reviews and substantial sales, reaching number 4 in the U.S. charts. It was followed up by a collaborative effort with former Mahavishnu Orchestra keyboardist Jan Hammer on the 1976 Wired album, which also received critical acclaim.

Jeff Beck - Live at Spectrum Philadelphia, Pa 5-2-75