The sun hasn’t set yet

The sun hasn’t set yet

Mann doesn’t particularly mesmerize me with this; he’s not better than Newman’s version, but the attempt is at least curious. It seems to me that what is needed is more interpretation of the fine songs that are being written, rather than writing one’s own mediocre songs. This, I think, has a lot to do with Rod Stewart’s success, even if his own compositions do stand up.

If Mann, who wrote some excellent Newman-influenced songs here, especially “My Prayer”, could find the right mix of under-recorded material by good artists and add a few of his own, he could be not only a very successful performer, but a valuable one as well.

As it stands, the Earth Band is one of the most enjoyable new rock bands I’ve heard lately. They have a nifty sense of where heavy begins and the sense of song, rather than jam, ends, and they tread that line extremely well, The tension on the record is deliberate and when the material is up to it, which is not as infrequent as may seem from what I have said, Mann and the Earth Band are quite exciting.

Listen to Rod, Manfred; you’re yoice isn’t that good, but you’re on the right track. Stewart might just show you the way home. (Nice to have ya back.)

Dave Marsh

FEARLESS

FAMILY

UNITED ARTISTS

I never liked Family. I got their Reprise albums, played them a couple of times and took ’em down to the used book store. They were completely incomprehensible, and Roger Chapman sang like an electric goat. Then about a year ago, I somehow got a copy of an album called Anyway ... on British Reprise. It was beautifully packaged, in a vinyl pouch that had a flap at the top, out of which you could pull the record in its sleeve and a folded-over peice of cardboard with a reproduction of a Leonardo da Vinci print on it. Just because the packaging fascinated me I put it on. The first side was live, and it made my hair stand right on end. The second side wasn’t bad, either. But Reprise over here in the States announced that they’d dropped Family because they only sold a couple hundred copies of their albums, and it didn’t matter how big a following they had in England, it was plain that they didn’t have one over here.

So Anyway. .. didn’t get released over here, and I thought we’d heard the end of Family until United Artists signed them and announced that they would release it, albeit with modified packaging, soon. And now, their first album since they left Reprise is out, and it’s called Fearless. UA assures us that they still intend to release the other one, but meanwhile, here’s a stopgap. Well, it’s not quite as good as Anyway. . . , but it’s still a good, strong album, loaded with some of the most intense, high-energy British rock and roll being made these days. The filler cuts pass

quickly enough, the few of them that there are (“Spanish Tide” and “Children”), and what’s left is fine indeed.

What makes Family such an exciting band is primarily their lead singer, Roger Chapman, who insists on choosing material that is just ever so slightly too high for his singing range. When he reaches for those upper notes, screaming as he does, it is a scary thing to hear. Beyond this, though, the band provides a backing of finely-wrought, semi-dissonant excitement. It is not difficult, when listening to Family, to imagine Why they are rural England’s favorite band. Even to somebody who’s never been there they manage to evoke the moors and rocky wastes of legend, and Chapman’s quavery voice could belong to an 80-year-old sheep farmer as well as to a rock singer.

The most notable cuts on Fearless are the full-tilt, loud, high-energy ones, since that’s what the band does best. My favorite is “Blind,” With Chapman’s upper register climb, a bagpipes-like violin, and some truly ethereal keyboard (?) noises at the beginning. “Sat’d’y Barfly” could be a Rod Stewart outtake, and in fact it has me wondering who’s borrowing from whom. No matter, though — it’s good. “Larf and Sing” has a nice acappella chorus on it, and “Between Blue and Me,” a fine song that just builds and builds, features a killer lead guitar duet.

Yeah, I’ve come to like Family, and I’ll go on record as saying that Fearless more than fills the gap. By the way, the cover is a cdmputer graphic, with the pictures being added to one another, culminating in the sum picture under the word Family in the upper right-hand corner. It’s as good a cover as the one on A nyway. . ., and just wait’ll they release that.

Ed Ward

HIMSELF

GILBERT O'SULLIVAN MAM

It was a cold Saturday morning in the booming metropolis of Century City. Melissa and Martin had just rolled a 94 year old shoeshine boy, and had $6.82 to spend on some new platters. They decided to hitch-hike down to the Putrid Bunny to groove on some

of the latest sounds on sale there. Luckily, they got a quick ride from a friendly, off-duty policeman, who, although driving in the opposite direction, took them twelve miles out of his way in busy traffic to their destination anyway.

On entering the store, they were walking over to the “misc. vocals” rack, when Melissa happened to notice a strange sound being emitted from the store’s sound system.

“Martin4” she said, as she coyly ran her hand up and down his spine, “what is that horrible caterwauling sound coming from .the stereo?”

“I don’t know,” he replied, feeling a slight surging heat being kindled within.

“Whatever or whoever it is, he can’t sing for shit;” she noted, as she let her fingers fall to the front of his belt, and then proceeded to tweek the small hairs near his belly button.

“That’s for damn sure,” he countered, pushing his hands up to massage Melissa’s perfect pear-shaped breasts.

“Ya know, he almost sounds like he’s trying to imitate Paul McCartney. In the style of songs, I mean.” She began to pant a little as her nipples hardened under Martin’s pulsating, hot finger-tips.

Melissa then ran her cool, hot hand eagerly and searchingly down the front of Martin’s jeans, groping for the great, pink member that she knew she would find below the kinky, moist pubic hair.

Martin groaned lowly, and began to unbuckle his seven inch high jade-embedded and gold-trimmed belt with his free hand. His Male, brushed purple denims fell ecstatically to the ground, and his huge manhood sprung lustily forth.

“It’s obviously English,” Melissa tantalizingly whispered,, “he sounds a little like Peter Noone of the old Hermits.”

Martin had slipped off his shirt, and was now easily and confidently removing Melissa’s faded levi shorts.

“Yes, he reminds me somewhat of George Formby, a simple and pathetic little English comedian who was extremely popular in the 40’s and 50’s. He made hundreds of movies, and always sung horrible, cretinish little songs in them in order to win the heroine.”

They were both naked now. Melissa had sunk to the ground, and Was slowly pulling Martin on top of herself as she mentioned, “He seems to be a holdover from the great English music hall tradition that was prominent in the age of Kipling, prospered through the Vaudeville era, and manifests itself even today in such performers as Freddie and the Dreamers, (still today English cabaret headliners), and such albums as even Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. ”

“An excellent point,” agreed Martin, as he began to run his torrid manhood up Melissa’s quivering thighs.

At this point, the happy policeman who had given the two knowledgeable music.lovers a ride entered the store. He had come back to return Martin’s baggy of narcotics and genuine Canary Islands mother-of-pearl hash pipe that the latter had so carelessly left in the car.

“My God, what is that horrible caterwauling on the stereo?” he asked, as he smashed their heads into the floor with his nightstick.

Nanook Niester

WORKERS'PLAYTIME B. B. BLUNDER POLYDOR

REG KING

BRITISH UNITED ARTISTS

The word from Britain these days is bizarre. The latest crop of British bands is producing music that gets stranger and stranger, and where they get it from, I have no idea. As long as they keep coming up with it, I’ll be happy.

Take B. B. Blunder, for instance. Formed out of the ashes of a group known as (ugh) Blossom Toes (who had one album out called ((UGH)) We Are Ever So Clean), they have come up with an album that knocks me for a loop every time I hear it. Basically, they are a. trio, utilizing lots of overdubbing and borrowing the lovely lungs of Julie Driscoll for some harmony singing, and their specialty is blurring chord changes and barlines in a very subtle way that is oddly appealing at first and gets more and more fascinating with each listen. The harmonic thinking in the songs is also incredibly complex, and I daresay that Julie’s harmony on the chorus of “You’re So Young” is in another key entirely. But all this doesn’t stand in the way of the basic appeal of the songs, and there is certainly no attempt to be Arty here. They just rock on and blare crazily in a way that British bands are so good at, and make you wish that this were a double album.

But Workers’ Playtime was kept in the can for over a year after it was recorded (what’s the matter, didn’t think we were ready for it?) and in the time that has passed since, they’ve played musical chairs like so many groups do, and one of the additions to the group has been a strong lead singer named Reg King, a veteran of the British rock scene who has been a studio arranger and was a member of a band called The Action back in 1966. On the cover of his new solo album he looks a bit like Rod Stewart, but (besides his talent as a singer) that’s where the resemblance ends. He does a lot of songwriting, and is more a melodic writer than any of the Blunder guys, who along with Mick Taylor and Brian Auger (who are also on the Blunder album) back him up. King’s album, though, isn’t as strong as Workers’ Playtime, mainly because it lacks its finished sound and several of the songs are constructed with some terribly noticeable tape splices. Still, the whole first side is a gas to listen to (and I do, often), and Blunder fans (there are such things?) should pick up on it.

I’m told we should be on the lookout for a new album from the new B. B. Blunder soon. Great — I look forward to it. Now how about one from the new Julie Driscoll - it’s been long enough!

Ed Ward

ROUGH & READY JEFF BECK EPIC

(When we assigned this album to Jonh Ingham for review, he rather self-effacingly declined to comment on it himself, choosing instead to poll his august colleagues. The following insufferably incestuous document was the result. -Ed.)

The new Jeff Beck album comes in a standard CBS wrapper, which is approximately 3/16 of an inch taller than the average album, black all over, and contains much the same design front and back. It has been discovered that the record is a normal quality Columbia-custom pressing and the label,is yellow, as befits Epic product. Tests in our demanding Sausalito laboratories under the highest conditions revealed that the record did in fact rotate clockwise when placed on the turntable. Removed from the turntable it ceased to rotate, while the turntable just kept on rolling. The main problem found with the album was adverse listener reaction, causing somewhat of a problem in keeping the album on the turntable. It was too much for the youthful weltzchmertz of the Creem Test Teem (Sausalito laboratories). We folks in Marin county like our music soft and mellow.

—Edmund O. Ward -John Morthland

I’ll give it another listen and call and tell you.

The Rubber Dubber

I had this dream about it. I don’t remember any of the specifics, except that the Jeff Back album was the Answer. I was in Cambridge, which ain’t exactly the place you go looking for Jeff Beck, but later a friend came home with the album and put it on . . . None of us could figure out the question.

—Dave Marsh

I have not heard the new Jeff Beck album. I do not want to hear the new Jeff Beck album.

-Jon Carroll

I listened to it twice. It’s still in my pile because Dave Marsh says that Jeff Beck is really good, but I always thought he was shit.

-Robert Christgau

I was tremendously disappointed. It sounds like he’s trying to recreate the old Jeff Beck group, which is of course useless. I expected him to go on to newer and greater

things.

-Barry Glovsky

Who’s Jeff Beck?

-ghostwritten for Lester Bangs

Is that the guy who used to Work with Rod Stewart? I hear he’s got good dope.

—Barry Kramer

Probably the best white jazz-soul album in a long time, but he’s overstepping his boundaries and should stick to heavy level blues rather than approaching the intricacies of,

say, Curtis Mayfield.

-Jon Tiven

Why should you listen to this? Because it’s there.

-Audie Murphy, Jr.

I haven’t heard it. Is it fabulous?

-Lillian Roxon

Jeff Beck is cute.

Raeanne Rubenstein

JAMMING WITH EDWARD NICKY HOPKINS, RY COODER,

MICK JAGGER, BILL WYMAN,

AND CHARLEY WATTS ROLLING STONES

Did you buy the Performance sound track album? Do you know the difference between the American and British versions of A ftermath? Can you get ahold of a copy of Live’r Than You’ll Ever Bel If not, you would probably think Edward is another burn perpetrated by that uncouth Mick Jagger and his band of ruffians. Us faithful on the other hand, know it for what it is, just a little something to tide us over while Hot Rocks and “American Pie” battle it out for the minds and spirits of the A.M. fans.

The music never really died, it’s just hibernating while the fans take a long look back at the sixties. Naturally, it would be unfair to leave those of us who payed attention at the time high and dry, so Mick, Bill, and Charley got together with Nicky Hopkins and Ry Cooder and they turned out this quickie. Of course, it has none of the hype and excitement of a regular Rolling Stones album, but at $3.98 list ($2.39 discount) who needs the trimmings. You put this record on and it covers up the silence just about as good as any other album I can think of lately. True “Edward’s Thrump Up”, “Highland Fling” and two-thirds of “Blow With Ry” are nothing more than piano on top of stark rhythm tracks, but tell me when were you last able to buy a Nicky Hopkins album? And for that matter can you find me a better Ry Cooder cut than “It Hurts Me Too”? The latter comes complete with a verse from “Pledging My Time” which just goes to show ya. While Dylan helps raise money for starving furriners, our boys try to get a little credit for the guy who wrote a lot of this stuff in the first place. Elmore would be proud if he were still around.

You don’t get a whole lot of Jagger singing on Edward. Just enough to let you know he hasn’t forgotten. I sure am glad he’s got his own record company and can release what he wants when he wants. I’ll listen to all the Rolling Stones albums even if they aren’t Rolling Stones albums. I’ll listen to all the ones that are too. I don’t give a shit.

Mad Peck

THE GENUINE GHETTO BLUES BLIND LUSH CRIPPLE DMT RECORDS

Not unsurprisingly, this is, was, and will be, the first and last recording of this astoundingly likeable veteran blues-shouter. Were it not for the truly acute prescience of Abraham Sharpstein, discoverer of the Texas-styled although Northern-raised singer/guitarist, the effective affectiveness of Cripple’s deeply-ingrained blues tradition would have been lost to future generations — a loss that we can only begin to evaluate at this time. No loss — thanks to Sharpstein — it is, though, and a mighty fine lp to boot, although Cripple had seen better days before the onset of the debilitations which were to leave him not until his death, although providing him with a not at all inaccurate. moniker.

For blind and crippled he was, hence the appelation, and a tippler too, without moderation. Immobile due to this, he was sought out and provided by Sharpstein with a rented Guild D-97 six-string and told to sing the blues, the results of which Sharpstein captured on his hardly-high-fidelity, albeit perfectly adequate for the difficult task of documentation of this disappearing strain of black American music, wire recorder, and the results are here for anyone with the patience to search out this somewhat difficult to find disc to hear.

Many of the songs included herein deal with the harsh realities of ghetto life, filtered through a blues, and booze, imbued consciousness of astoundingly ordinary magnificence. Such topics as women, drinking, the blues, grits, chitlins, women, ribs, barbeque sauce, militancy, Dixie Peach Pomade, liquor, rats and roaches, tenement dwellings, not links with home fries, hold the mustard, wine, and women appear, albeit sometimes not uncryptically, in the lyrics of his gut-level songs, sung slurred but with undeniable power. Many listeners unaccustomed to these very harsh realities may be uncomfortable with Blind’s music, but that he presents these topics as coherently as he does is indeed a credit to his ability to concentrate on the meanings of his life.

This record was made during the spring of 1963, and Sharpstein was at that time using a P.O. Box in Beverly Hills as an address, so the diligent blues enthusiast may have a search on his hands to obtain a copy, but as the lyrics of “Baby Come Back Blues” so compellingly state, “It don’ matter no Mo.”

Garret Van Turge

HAPPY TO BE JUST LIKE I AM TAJ MAHAL COLUMBIA

Ok. This is his best album since his second, the best of his “new thing.” But about that “new thing” ...

When Taj released his first lp he was already the kind of contemporary blues legend that allowed him to carry off the wonderful cover of that album. In spite of the birds and the bees gatherin’ round to hear him sing there wasn’t a hint of Uncle Remus. Everything seemed right, arid the lucious crawl of his “Celebrated Walking Blues,” still the best recording he has made, gave his great name a magic credibility. Sure he was playing a role — the morganatic son of Robert Johnson — but it was a great role and he seemed to know just what to do with it. Today, “Taj Mahal” calls forth no majestic images — as “Taj,” it’s just a name. He toms. His enormous charm, which on stage is still powerful and at times almost dignified, has degenerated into something worse than cuteness on record. He is no longer reaching for his own blues, or even the blues of the past, but has settled into a blackface minstrel show. The music is pleasant enough, and there are a few moments of real emotion, because Taj Mahal can be a great entertainer. But in the end one has to say that he has become the kind of parody of his own race that appeals to the very worst in the whites who presumably are buying this record.

The hip white of today may flatter himself that he is “beyond” racism, as he allows himself a racist chuckle or even a supposedly joking slur. Whether they admit it or not it is comforting for whites to persevere in the cultural fantasies of blacks as simple-minded ryhthm “boys,” as Taj for some reason wants to appear, or raving, harmless queers, like Little Richard, or mindless fuck-machines, like Jimi Hendrix at one point in his career. Jimi understood the degradation of that role, and he case it off before he died. But Taj, most of the time, still acts out the white man’s fantasy of the dumb, good-natured, lazy, laughin’, singin’, dancin’ nigger. There, are plenty of people, “hip” and otherwise, eager to trade on this image, and there is a movement among the proto-fascist groups springing up within the counter-culture to help the young “rriake peace” with their own racism. These kinds of impulses and these kind of people need Taj as the house nigger of rock and roll, which is what he has almost become, on record. In concert, at least when I saw him recently, he was a strong, warm, and lively man, but otherwise he is a travesty, a racial joke in a time when such jokes are truly dangerous.

I hope this piece is clear. It’s not meant to be an attack on Taj Mahal, or an insult, just a plea. “Old Black Joe” on Jim Kewskin’s America is the prison that is being built for Taj, and the tragedy is that he is walking right into it.

Griel Marcus

EARL SCRUGGS:

HIS FAMILY AND FRIENDS COLUMBIA

What evef happened to Flatt and Scruggs? Well, I tell ya, it’s sure funny what can happen to a man in twenty years. I wasn’t privy to the various tensions preceding the breakup, but I do know that after it happened Earl Scruggs was seen at the Moratorium and Lester Flatt put out a record called “I Can’t Tell The Boys From The Girls” that was a real honko yucker* Scruggs then went on to release an abominable psychedelic album, which featured him pattern-picking in the background to the likes of “Honky Tonk Women.” I’d about reluctantly given the lead to Lester when I saw the NET special Earl had made. It was interesting, and I felt I’d gained a real insight.

The program was basically a bunch of setup shots of Scruggs in various settings, where he’d mawk around for a few minutes and then get down to business: “Say, remember we used ta pick that ole song ...” and they’d get down to it. The show opened with a snatch of Bob Dylan singing some old folk standard — it might have been “Pretty Polly” — and then playing “Nashville Skyline Rag” with Earl, Randy, and Gary Scruggs. Whatever the song they sung was, it made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.

There were some other nice shots, too: a session with Doc and Merle Watson got off some of that famous Watson machine-gun picking, and I was particularly touched by a visit to the Morris Brothers, two good old boys who had been of some help to Earl back when, but who had retired from the music biz to operate a body shop in Black Mountain, N.C.„ where they sang “Salty Dog” and did quite a creditable job on it.

So now the soundtrack album is out, and, while I’m glad I got it, it ain’t all that hot stuff. That song Dylan sang was left off, while the “Nashville Skyline Rag” was left on, there’s way too much talking (albeit I’ll bet it’s the first time Joan Baez has ever recorded the word “ladies room”), and you simply can’t get through the yap to the music. Too bad, because the music’s just fine. You can even forgive the banjo-Moog duet in light of the Watson performances and the Morris Brothers’ fine set. As it is, though, I’d only recommend this set to Dylan completists and hard-core Scruggs fans.

Ed Ward

INTO THE PURPLE VALLEY

RY COODER

REPRISE

This is the finest record of urban interpretations of American folk music to come out since the heyday of the great folk revival of the early Sixties, a collection of fascinating songs, all played with incredible taste and sensibility, and recorded impeccably. Cooder’s been at it a long time, being a veteran of both Captain Beefheart’s first Magic Band and Taj Mahal’s famed electric folk music experiment, the Rising Sons. He has steeped himself in blues and hillbilly music in order to become the masterful instrumentalist he is, and in so doing has unearthed some of the songs on this album. Some of them you may recognize, others you surely won’t, but they’re all amazing period pieces, amazing because they reflect, like all good folk music, both the time they were written and conditions that are timeless.

Still, you probably aren’t convinced. After all, Ry Cooder has put out some mighty poor music with his name on it - just listen to all those sessions he’s played. He’s been accused of using the same five licks over and over again. Actually, though, you can’t blame him. For one thing, he is primarily a studio musician, that’s how he earns his bread, and a studio musician is only as good as the material he’s given to work with. And the material he’s handed by someone like, say, Rita Coolidge, doesn’t exactly inspire guitar lines that will live forever. Sometimes I get the impression that some of these people hire Cooder just to have his name on the album. And who can blame him for playing on them, either? I mean, a guy’s gotta eat.

But on his own, doing the kind of stuff he’d choose to do if he was given a chance, leading the band for a change, he shows himself to be the consummate artist he is. I must admit that his voice ain’t the greatest, but then neither were the voices that first recorded a lot of this stuff.

“How Can You Keep On Moving” is a Depression song, as are most of the songs on the album. As you might expect, they fit in nicely with current events, but, unlike so much of the current fascination with that era, you certainly don’t get the impression that he’s doing Depression songs out of a desire to be chic. Anyway, there’s nothing chic about this song, ably supported by slide guitar and a rocking band, dealing with the problems of keeping moving without “migrating” which is in violation of the law. I think this might have come from the New Lost City Ramblers’ Songs of the Depression album, but I’m not sure.

The only song I couldn’t track down for sure was “F.D.R. in Trinidad,” and a suggestion to call the Trinidad Cultural Bureau in San Francisco led to a look in the phone book, which resulted in finding a listing for the Trinidad Bean and Elavator Company, but nothing else. It is one of a plethora ofpolitical calypsos, and ranks with the Soul Stirrers’ “Why I Like Roosevelt Parts One and Two” as one of the finest songs written about F.D.R. The political calypsos being written these days about the U.S., by the way, aren’t nearly as friendly as this one . ..

“Teardrops Will Fall” was a minor hit for Dicky Do and the Don’ts in early 1958 (they were the ones whp recorded “Nee-Nee-NahNah-Nah-Nah-Nu-Nu,” in case they sound familiar), and Cooder’s performance, with its understated but particularly lovely guitar part, is wonderful.

“Denomination Blues” was written by Washington Phillips, a little-known ’30’s gospel singer, and later recorded by Sister Rosetta Tharpe with Lucky Millinder’s band. It’s the perfect answer for the Jesus freak on your block, concluding as it does that “ ‘Denomination’ ain’t a thing but a name” and “You better have Jesus, I tell ya that’s all.” The rinky-tinky celeste is nicely offset by the drunken horn arrangement.

The cut that has been wiping me out since I got the album is Johnny Cash’s “Hey Porter.” Cooder has used an arrangement — guitar, mandolins, piano and tub bass — that evokes perfectly the Yank Rachel/Hammy Nixon/Sleepy John Estes session that produced the earliest record I’ve ever heard with a true rock and roll feel to it: “Expressman Blues.” Cooder has got Rachel’s mandolin style down cold, even if he does double-track it, and he has learned how to make the instrument cry in the same way. The transplant of this style onto a song like “Hey Porter” takes some getting used to, but there is no doubting how successful it is.

“Taxes On The Farmer Feed Us All” is a Depression reworking of the old “The Farmer Is The Man” group of Populist Midwestern songs of the mid-19th century. It’s another I suspect he got from the New Lost City Ramblers (and where are they these days???) and its tone is humorous enough that you can be shocked by the other side of the same coin, Woody Guthrie’s “Vigilante Man,” which follows it. The song gets a searing reading, backed only by an acoustic bottleneck guitar, and sung better than any other song on the album. It’s a bleak note to end the album on, but not at all inappropriate.

There isn’t a shred of evidence to suggest that a folk revival that would incorporate traditional music like this is about to happen again, but it sure would be nice if there were. Listening to this album, I was reminded of the incredible amount of stuff that isn’t on it that is of similar quality. The crap that passes as “folk music” these days can’t hold a candle to any of these songs, because these songs were created by people who had done a lot more living in a lot rougher circumstances than your typical 19-year-old castrato shadows-ofmy-mind singer ramblin round the country in a VW van with a bunch of expensive Martin guitars. That’s not to say that the background music to American History isn’t still being written, but that, with the rare exception of an album like this, it’s not heard much at the moment. Ry Cooder has made an admirable start, and I hope that he will not only continue to produce masterpieces like Into The Purple Valley, but that he will inspire others to look into a vast American musical heritage that is there, just waiting to be brought around again.

Ed Ward

COSMOS

LOU DONALDSON BLUE NOTE

COMIN'ON HOME RICHARD GROOVE HOLMES BLUE NOTE

GENE HARRIS/THE THREE SOUNDS BLUE NOTE

I like Lou Donaldson and I like Richard Groove Holmes and I like Gene Harris and The Three Sounds and I remember when Donaldson was widely considered to be at least as likely a successor to Charlie Parker as were Phil Woods or Cannonball Adderly or that young kid called Jackie McLean and I remember seeing The Three Sounds (in the days before they became Gene Harris and) at places like the Metro Theatre on Washington Boulevard in L.A. where they regularly blasted lesser but better-known piano trios right off the after-hours stage and I remember whole months worth or nights spent listening to Groove Holmes at Mr. Adams and the It Club and the Metro and the Adams West (by day a mild-mannered Samurai cinema) and one night at Mr. Adams I was sitting right up there in front of the Hammond speakers when Groove’s drummer (whose name was Mousey) lost one of his sticks and I caught it as it spun past me in mid-air and that was something of a high point in my life you may well believe and, hell, I even wrote the liner notes for the above-mentioned Groove Holmes lp and I would have done something for the Three Sounds album too if I hadn’t run afoul of United Artists’ art department deadlines, and for that matter I would gladly have done the notes for the Donaldson lp as well if anybody had thought to ask me. So I’m hardly going to put these albums down, because I think each one of them has at least some of the qualities that make this sort of music worth listening to now and again. For instance, Donaldson’s album is simply a lot of fun (that’s a pretty, strange-sounding caterpillar in the song of the same name, but the whole thing sure captures the up-and-down pull-toy sexuality with which said creature moves, and anybody who can make you smile just by playing “When You’re Smiling the Whole World Smiles With You” or who can play “Make It With You” so it comes out ballsy instead of sappy — both of which Donaldson does — can’t be all bad), but apart from that there is the undeniable fact that Donaldson is fantastically professional, incredibly certain of the way he breathes, fully in command of the ways in which he exhales his slightly-weary life-force out through that glittering brass alto of his. He’s just so damned reassuring Like Vivaldi or cinnamon toast or warm flesh. Which is not meant insultingly since I — for one - think that this business of young, brash, unfledged reedmen running about clad in nothing but agressive energy has gone far enough. 1 like mature professionalism now and again, even if it is just the same old changes.

Groove Holmes is something of a technician - a rather unusual accomplishment for a jazz organist since all you really need to become a cocktail lounge headliner with that instrument is an AC plug and a fake-book of old spirituals. But Holmes. Another thing entirely. I can’t think (off hand, as it were) of another jazz organist with such fleet feet, such dazzlingly rapid, impressively forceful bass lines. And he has a fine dramatic sense, a Shakespearean’s skill with nuance and dynamic juxtaposition, with the risings and fallings and decays and attacks of intensity and tone that .add dimension to performance. The lines he weaves in and out of Weldon Irvine’s electric piano on the timidly bi-tonal j “Mr. Clean” are really nice, really, truly inventive. Jobim’s “Waves” has a tender, flowing continuity about it, a seascape serenity. “The Theme” — god save us — “From Love Story” even swings slightly instead of sagging like it usually does. Groove plays good. To be perfectly (if ungrammatically) plain about it.

Gene Harris and The Three Sounds (there are, on the current lp, eight of them, but who cares?) aren’t bad. They’re faultless as far as they go, which is just far enough to be rhythmically precise, rhythmically ingratiating even, as they play some definitelyabove-average jazzy R&B originals (and also poor old “Eleanor Rigby”, who keeps getting dug up and paraded around in her funereal finery for some reason or other), and I’d sure rather listen to GH and The TS than to “The Theme From Shaft” which is, as I write this, the number one album on the jazz charts even though there’s more jazz in the average Herbie Alpert record and a whole lot more jazz in the Three Sounds.

But. Still and all. However. On the other hand. There is something wrong with these lps. Something that keeps them on the shelf, keeps them bff the turntable, around my house at least. That something, apart from the simple fact that I’ve heard it all before, by the same performers and by others of equal or near-equal competence, is that this is milieu music. Music that is at its lovely best only under certain circumstances. Like when you’re sitting in a club drinking Cutty-on-therocks squinting through the stinging smoke because you eyes aren’t feeling too terribly open anyway and who’s that fine fox over there with the sparkly hair and shit man what was that, etc., etc. Times like that, Groove Holmes is positively , sublime. Lou Donaldson plays so pretty and so right it makes you cry through your smiles. Harris and the Sounds won’t let you sit still. You’re a part of the milieu and hence a part of the particular energy flow that sparks it and I wonder how many utterly superfluous (not to mention just plain terrible) jazz albums have been cut, re leased, promoted, and even hotly bought just because people don’t realize that some things must always elude shiny vinyl capture.

These albums are like “Music You Heard in Paris.” Background mnemonica. Snapshot albums made of sound. Nice enough, I suppose, but hardly the same thing as really being there. Colman Andrews

THE JACKSON FIVE'S GREATEST HITS MOTOWN

Motown has always been known for its little ones more than its big ones, and the Jackson Five are no exception. This is undoubtedly their best album; it does everything that Motown Greatest Hits collections do in legend — including maybe make you cry, if you were ever involved enough with a certain song at a certain time/space coordinate — without even bothering to think about it.

The Jackson Five are probably the best thing happening at Motown right now simply because they are getting the best arrangements, the best material, are the best looking, and so forth. They’re one of the few Motown acts to escape the Norman Whitfield - Barrett Strong acid deluge (though they show some of the strongest Sly Stone influence at Motown), and thus far they’ve also avoided the wimpy supper-club stuff too. It shows: they cook like it was ’65, and that is less historical reference than it is energy comment.

Michael Jackson often sounds like an adolescent Smokey Robinson, which is a readymade comment, I suppose but nonetheless a valid one. There’s just enough Sly Stone influence to remind you that he is only 12 (ten when “I Want You Back” and “ABC” were recorded!). Jermaine’s material is less successful (the exception is “I Found That Girl” which is incredible), maybe because he is going through an awkward stage. (Or that’s what Smokey told me.)

Michael, of course, hasn’t even begun to deal with the onset of puberty, but you’d never know it from his version of “Who’s Lovin’ You,” which is Smokey-sweet (maybe because that’s who wrote it). “Who’s Lovin’ You” breaks the mold, which was perfectly described by Arnold Brodsky as “not only fast, with heavily accented rhythms, but also loose and playful, with built-in irregularities and breathing spaces that Michael and the others can fill with their delightful improvisations.”

That is an accurate summation of what is going on here. With the exception of “I Found That Girl,” and “Who’s Lovin’ YQU” the material that works inevitably is invariably of this sort. The other stuff isn’t bad, necessarily — “Maybe Tomorrow” and “I’ll Be There” were hits, for example, and I have a perverse love for the latter — but it doesn’t work as well. “Mama’s Pearl” and “Never Can Say Goodbye” both grate; when the J5 are off, they’re an irritant, because they sound like a bunch of half-assed kids going through some pretentious motions.

About 80% of this album escapes that problem by transcending it; it’s certainly the best Jackson Five album, but then you’re supposed to say that about Motown albums. Nonetheless, Greatest Hits encompasses everything great they’ve ever done, and if you can only get one, you’ll get this one. Me, I got ’em all... even the bubble gum cards.

Dave Marsh

HUNKY DORY DAVID BOWIE RCA

David Bowie gained a slight measure of fame a few years back with “Space Oddity,” one of several fine songs on a better than average album. But the man seemed so obsessed with being the cosmic poet laureate during a summer in which the world was a bit sick of dream machines and science fiction that he created an album predestined for failure.

Early this year he returned and, lo and behold, he’d become the Space Oddity. David Bowie in his fur maxi coat and evening gown and Lauren Bacall hair, parading somewhat pathetically for attention. He paraded so well, in fact, that he nearly overshadowed a pretty fair album, The Man Who Sold the World. But where he really blew it was again with his fanaticism for space-age lyrics. “And gloomy browed with super fear their tragic endless lives.” What the hell? He got a lot of press party attention, but that was about it.

Now he’s trying once more, with Hunky Dory. It almost is. He’s still hung up on words, still parading, still a shade too cute. But there’ve been some changes, perhaps concessions is a better word, and they’re for the best. He’s dropped his lyrics to an even priority with his music - excellently played and arranged - and his voice; campy, mocking, soft, hard, powerful or in general what he chooses it to be. No longer are lyrics forced upon us. We hear what we want, which is interesting to say the least. Perhaps more importantly, David seems to be relaxed, enjoying himself for a change.

It’s a damn good album despite a lot of self-contradictory, potentially annoying material, because the finished product allows the contradictions to be both overlooked and enjoyed. It might be easy to question the sincerity behind a “Song for Bob Dylan,” a plea to Robert Zimmerman to stop writing ultrapersonal songs nobody understands and call back his old friend Dylan who everybody understands - while Bowie is busy singing of his brother who is “Camelian, comedian Corinthian and Caricature.” Yet the song is skillfully done with a superb early Dylan vocal and fine guitar work. Besides, it’s difficult to tell just how serious David is. It’s at least as easy to question the motives behind “Andy

Warhol,” who Bowie claims dresses his friends up just for show and engages in “jolly boring” pastimes. Well, if anyone looks life a Warhol superstar it’s Bowie and his own cut, “Queen Bitch,” sounds more like Lou Reed than Lou Reed. Again, however, one is hard-pressed to judge Bowie’s seriousness. Anyway, “Queen Bitch” is one good rock tune. The point is, these songs are so good and really so much fun that they are not at all annoying.

Otherwise, David has a good time singing “Oh! You Pretty Things,” a tune he wrote for Peter Noone to make his solo debut with. David Bowie writing songs for an ex-Hermit? The poet serving the bubblegum king? Well, he camps it up in his best British music hall voice, surrounds it with a honky tonk piano and everyone has fun. Or there’s “Kooks,” a happily perverted little tale reminiscent of Ray Davies, with mum and dad telling sonny he can face life or stay at home and be like them, nuts but happy. “Life on Mars?” is one of those “what do any of them know” Bowie specials saved by fine vocals that Laruen Bacall could never match and Mick Ronson’s string arrangements.

In the end, David Bowie has his cake and eats it, too. He’s still got his lyrics on paper (relegated to the inside jacket, however), and he even lets them dominate the occasional song. But he pays as much attention to his voice and the sounds around it, even having a go at sax, which is how he broke into music (not as a Cockette, I might add); he leaves the listener a choice.

Intentionally or not, he’s making up for a lot of lost time and effort. In “Changes,” he says that “time may change me.” I think it has already.

Bob Kirsch

WESTERN MAN MOSE ALLISON ATLANTIC

It’s not difficult to understand why so many people in rock have taken on the trappings of the Mose Allison style. Donovan, Marc Benno, Ben Sidran and so many others have found the contagious, easy-going manner of the man from Tippo, Mississippi easily adaptable to their own context.

While Mose is often imitated, he’s never duplicated. His style is more than a sound, it’s a way of life. Raised in the country, born with the blues and schooled inthe mellow subtleties of jazz, Mose is as much philosopher as musician, a piano-boppin’ sage who plays what he lives and lives what he plays.

His trademark is the kind of sound that drifts from behind the doors of places with names like The Pink Pussycat Lounge just before sunrise. His piano struts and strides, gallops and glides, kicking up dust and mud, or wafts in smooth and close like imported perfume and expensive champagne under dim lights. His voice, always in intimate interaction with the piano, hints of dirt roads and neon lights, a city slicker honeysucklin’ sophisticated com pone.

Mose’s songs explain themselves in the titles, often bridging the obvious with twists of the unexpected. “Benediction” is a prayer in a jukebox: “When push comes to shove/ Thank God for .. . self-love!”

“Night Club” is his whole story: “Been workin’ in a night club so long, can hardly stand the break of day.” Twenty years of Tuesday to Sunday shifts, then on to the next town of “run down rooms and dirty pianos.” And yet:

If I had a million dollars I’d sit right down and relax I’d buy myself a nightclub And write it off my income tax*

It’s all part of Mose’s ethic: “Live and let live is my advice/ if you’ve got questions, ask me nice.”

On the album’s ambitious title song, Mose takes on the American dream turned nightmare. It begins as an achingly slow ballad, delivered with bitter, barely controlled contempt:

Western man had a plan and with a gun in his hand free from doubt, went right out on the world ... western man with his cross meant to prove who was boss in his pride, he’ll decide for the world...

Suddenly, the mournful blues takes off: “At first he sailed right through/ wasn’t nothin’ he couldn’t do ... ” Mose cuts at the maudlin joke of American history the way he handles an unfaithful lover:

... he came up with Crocketts, sprockets rockets and jets,

two hundred million color TV sets but when they added up the cost seems he played his ace and lost... * There’s an optimistic twist at the end -Mose ain’t gonna let you go home angry, and besides, he knows the solution: “Rich in wealth/ took a new concept/ got in step/ with the world.”

Mose shifts slightly from his classic situation on this album as he uses, for the first time as far as I know, an electric piano. It doesn’t hamper Mose’s expression at all. On the remarkably touching ballad “How Much Truth, the electric piano italicizes Mose’s message, and it works beautifully. On some of the faster tunes, though, the shallower depth and limited range of the electric piano effects the usually staccato quality of the standard Mose Allison jump song.

Maybe that’s what he wanted. Mose has certainly been doing Mose Allison long enough to know what he wants, and everything he does is stamped with an unimpeachable amount of taste and integrity.

I wonder, though, whether the electric piano wasn’t his producer’s idea to do something “contemporary”: Mose, after all, ain’t exactly the best-selling artist in Atlantic history. I get the feeling the next time around, Mose will be back without the electricity. Either way, Mose is a good drinkin’ buddy, the best of company, and the best damn guidance counselor a kid could wish for — and it’s all included in the price of the album.

* ©Audre Mae BMI

Wayne Robins