Bridge over Troubled Water - Simon & Garfunkel

Track list:

1. Bridge over Troubled Water
2. El Condor Pasa (If I Could)
3. Cecilia
4. Keep the Customer Satisfied
5. So Long Frank Lloyd Wright
6. The Boxer
7. Baby Driver
8. The Only Living Boy In New York
9. Why Don't You Write Me
10. Bye Bye Love
11. Song for the Asking
12. Feuilles-O
13. Bridge Over Troubled Water

Running time: 43 minutes
Released: 1970

A classic I was moved to pick up because... I don't know why. I have Simon's Graceland too, which I have listened to more, but I have never been a particular fan of him or the duo. I think I must have felt - at some point probably close on 15 years back - that I really ought to listen to this. Either that or it was so cheap I couldn't pass it up. I wonder what a dedicated listen will offer?

We start with the very recognisible chords of the title track - a song I have two of, since the "bonus tracks" on this disc include another recording of it. A weekend where I didn't get to a listen on Saturday, and this one is being squeezed in (today was Mother's Day here). The song is a little soporific, subdued. I don't think this is the version I am more familiar with. The melody is nice and clear, soothing, the vocal has its moments but does not inspire me. It is better when they harmonise but even then it gets a bit grandstand-y, all blow no show. I am not a fan.

The opening to the second track is more promising, Spanish guitars, but it is far less interesting once the vocals start and it devolves into a rather stereotyped style, the sound more Greek to my ears than Spanish. By the time Cecilia starts I am thinking that even at a price too cheap to pass up this is not for me. This track is far too happy-clappy for my liking, with really nothing to recommend it to me. The blusier sound of Keep the Customer Satisfied is more interesting but at the same time its basic progression is so cliched and standard that it sounds like a thousand other songs; I can't escape that feeling which rather ruins the track for me.

The plus point that offsets these whinges of mine is that each track is very different from the last. Thus far they are equally unengaging though, and I find my eye drawn to the figure waving Amazonian bugs around on the silenced TV in the background instead. I really shouldn't have it on whilst otherwise occupied; bad habit. Seems that the energy usage is not a significant factor though, to go by the reading on the smart meter.

The Boxer is another instantly recognisible track. This has a cadence and a timbre that is more pleasing, even before the chorus with its distinctive lai-la-lais. The softer tone but consistent rumble of the guitar create a nice space, and the rise and fall of the vocal fills that space, giving it shape and form to the ear that my brain translates as relaxing. I wasn't aware that it got dark though - some threatening sounds creep in between 3 and 4 minutes somewhere, but all fall out by the end. It all feels a little schizophrenic, a bit like the whole album and its inability to stick to a style or theme. Simon and Garfunkel were certainly varied to go by this. More happy-clappiness follows, definitely sounding its age - birthed in the 60s, though the album itself scraped into the 70s before arriving. There are elements of The Beatles in Baby Driver I reckon, though that particular group are one I am far from qualified to talk about.

The Only Living Boy in New York... another tune that is a step above the majority. This time next week I'll be on a plane heading in that direction, business not pleasure, though I'm going to NJ, not NY. Wrong side of the Hudson. The song stands out because... it doesn't stand out? There doesn't appear to be such a gimmick here in the way that some of the other tunes have had. This sort of style, laid back folky guitars, is more what I would have expected from this pair; maybe I like it more because it aligns to expectation. I am not so keen on the next track which makes me think of cheesy movies that don't date well, nor on the swell of crowd applause that drowns out Bye Bye Love - this is a clap-along live recording it seems with an overly jaunty guitar that just makes me a little queasy. It sounds like a precursor to Graceland (some 16 years hence at this point) in some ways though... and I would hazard that between the two, Simon worked out how to apply the effect better.

Couple of shorties, then the second rendition of the title track. Song for the Asking sounds like a lot of 70s folk that presumably followed this, which is to say its pretty bland and sad, but pleasant with it. The brightness of the guitar offsets the maudlin strings and the short and sweet nature of the song  wraps it into a more than acceptable package. The French song that is the first of the two bonuses is really dull; it is also very short but brevity is not enough to save it.

Those chords again - we're reaching the end. This is a softer opening, I prefer the vocal here and the piano-only recording. There isn't quite the grandstanding here, though the same stresses are all present. It is all just a little more understated, and we Brits love that more than brashness. It isn't all piano and voice, percussion arriving later, even if it is handmade. This version feels more authentic somehow, purer, better - or at least more to my taste. I didn't get on with a lot of this album if I'm honest, but there are a few highlights to maintain. Given that I probably got it for a pittance, that's not too bad, then.

Bitches Brew (Disc 2) - Miles Davis

Track list:

1. Spanish Key
2. John McLaughlin
3. Miles Runs the Voodoo Down
4. Sanctuary
5. Feio

Running time: 58 minutes
Released: 1970

So after the first disc of this so called classic was a major disappointment, what of the remaining hour of music from Bitches' Brew? My hopes aren't high, but the fact that these tracks are a touch shorter might be a good sign.

Another week has gone by since I gave time over to the first disc in this set, and I am still massively disappointed with it. I am heartened then, when the initial sounds of Spanish Key are really very appealing. The length of the piece concerns me, on past form, and the hour length of these 5 tunes together is what sealed not listening to anything during the week. Now though, it is a bright Sunday morning and I am putting off the thought of having to garden in the brisk October air.

A forceful trumpet, sultry sax and a rhythm that wouldn't feel out of place in noughties electronica is a good introduction though. The addition of synth notes lightens the mood and it is this lightening that makes the first theme change work, the tone of the brass pieces changing to be more of a floating sound, sitting above the continued structure rather than wallowing in amongst it. The threatening percussion fades a little as we approach half-way, and there is a full on tonal shift to a brighter, funkier piece. Oddly, whilst I felt that disc 1 was a child of its time, dated horribly, this piece feels like it was ahead of its and still sits nicely. If I didn't know who I was listening to here, for those stretches when Davis' trumpet is quiet or placed other than front and centre I would be guessing the creators as more likely to be a Ninja Tune affiliate of some kind. What a difference a week makes?

The shuffling nature of the percussion maintains the consistency throughout this track, addressing the worst of the issues I had with Pharaoh's Dance, and the lines and shapes woven on top of that by the keyboards and horns are given license to meander precisely because they have boundaries drawn within which to do so. I cannot escape the feeling that the piece goes too far and too long - everything past about 10 minutes feels unnecessary - but unlike with what I heard last week it does keep me engaged and doesn't stray far from the path in other ways. Its not a complete wash out for Bitches Brew, then.

John McLaughlin stands out on this album because it is sub 5 minutes. Musically it definitely feels like it comes from the same place as Spanish Key, but there is less reliance on horns here - keys and guitars carry the piece instead and half way through I am not sure I have heard Davis' trumpet once. It ends up feeling much of a muchness - too samey throughout to generate any real feeling. It could have been another movement in the prior track (though I am grateful that it wasn't) and probably only survives a cull because of its relative brevity making it a more appropriate inclusion in a shuffle.

There is a nice feel to the start of the third track. Trumpet back to lead the main theme, percussion slowed down giving a more southern bayou feel to things (should that be capitalised?) which the top end has to work to shake off, and does. The horn theme is the most musical we have had on the album to date and this really does feel like a fusion between a more classical jazz with sounds that post-date it because the combination sits well here. Fusion implies a joining, and on the first disc things were simply not linked up right. It feels to me as if the group as a whole maybe learned from that and by this point in the recording sessions had realised the importance of continuity and connections in enabling the freewheeling chop and change that drives the melodies (such as they are). This disc feels a world away from the two tracks that made up the first half of the record.

I've hit a lull though as the midpoint of Miles Runs the Voodoo Down falls into blandness - the horn melodies have gone and whilst there is still continuity of bass the rest of it has gone tits up. Experimentation on the keys overrides anything else that forms part of the piece, like a black hole sucking away any merit. Thankfully the section is gone as suddenly as it arrived but it leaves a sour note for the first time in this listen. There are two more tracks to go, and its another 20 minutes. I realise suddenly that the bland moment may have brought upon a fatigue with the listen as a whole which may prejudice the approach to the last couple of pieces.

The opening of Sanctuary has a soft and mellow tone, harking back to earlier in Davis' career and, to me, creating images of a nightime city-pan scene in 40s LA. Why does that setting still resonate so strongly in the modern day? From novels to film to RPGs and videogames, LA in the 30s and 40s retains a very definite draw - a strong sense that is incredibly rooted in that one city and not generically in the America of the time, or even the California of the epoch. I guess it is a confluence of factors - the glamour of the birth of Hollywood being one of the big ones. In any case, being moved to think of this swept away any negative worries of what the track might be like and firms it up instead as something that I both like, and which might have soundtrack utility in future. Sure there are electronic keyboard tones there that simply didn't exist in the 40s but the overall impression is far more important to its potential re-use than any worries about historical accuracy. This one short paragraph has had me thinking, engaged, for the whole of the piece. As that runs to 11 minutes that means not a lot of words for the time, but it speaks well to the sense of, well, sanctuary that the tune creates: a safe space for the mind to wander freely. I like this tune a lot, and whilst its star fades a little in the closing moments as the too-bright keys take over the sound a little more than I would like I have no hesitation in pronouncing Sanctuary the best of the Bitches' Brew recordings.

Will that be challenged by Feio, our last piece? I suspect not but we'll see. It starts as a very open piece, with lots of quiet layered onto a few longer, drawn out sounds. I rather like it, but it is not instantly catapulting me into another world of thought and inspiration or demanding that I pay it every heed. It is a little too slow, I think. Whilst I like the sense of space it feels like this one is just empty, almost dead. I catch myself not concentrating on the piece - wandering fingers and eyes having pulled up BBC News stories instead. That is not the intent of these posts, but it does illustrate just how little there is going on at any one point in Feio. Whilst the piece is never silent and, to be fair it does have a consistency to it that makes it work as a whole epic, at any given moment there is just not enough there to be interesting and I find myself lulled into a sleepy, bored state. The sounds there are, warm and enveloping, are pleasant its just lacking anything to elevate it from a nice sound to something you'd want to listen to. Then suddenly it is the end and a creepy voice closes it out, a shudder hit me when it spoke up it was so unexpected.

So, not a strong end, and a bit of a wobble in the middle, but overall a vast improvement on the first disc of Bitches' Brew, enough to restore my faith in the purchase and to see why the album was so lauded. Where next is the question.

Bitches Brew (Disc 1) - Miles Davis

Track list:

1. Pharaoh's Dance
2. Bitches Brew

Running time: 47 minutes
Released: 1970

What to say to introduce this? Two epic-length tracks.  So much so that I am not sure I have ever sat and listened to either before, despite the classic status of this album.

It is a soft and low-key start, brushed drums and a distant organ. A bit discordant too. Waffling. Hopefully the piece improves and gains a bit of structure, a few more bold sounds and sommething to hung interest around because my first impressions are not positive. This is supposed to be a classic though; it must have a bit more heft to it later.

It's been an odd week; I have not managed to make good on the promise of last week's return to frequent posts. I took Monday off, and then two evenings of gaming in person (RPG Tuesday, boardgames on  Wednesday) and two of gaming online (Far Cry 4, co-op) wiped out the time available to post. It doesn't feel that long since my last effort, but it is. Time flies, eh? Whilst I bemoan that, and Japan take a commanding lead over Samoa in the rugby, the Pharaoh's Dance has sprung into a little more life. Not a great deal, but some. It was welcome but I cannot help but feel this is just random musings, the wanderings of a stupid improv session rather than considered genius. As I approach the half-way mark on the first of the pair I have yet to find a theme to latch onto, anything that binds my attention and asks me to appreciate it. This may turn out to be a short post because the lack of tracks mean there is less cohesiveness to discuss.

Look - there are nice moments and movements buried in these pieces but it feels like a slog wading through everything else to get to them. The whole thing feels very dated, aging poorly and worse with every second. I can certainly see that something like this was once avant garde and of genuine interest because of that, but it feels tired, directionless and clichéd now, the epitome of what people would point to and sneer at for being jazz - structure-less and never-ending. Moments lost in the sea of irrelevance. It's a real shame for me, because finally as the track closes there is a real theme that I like, Davis' trumpet carrying a fair amount of weight. It's just too little too late as it comprises maybe the last couple of minutes of the Dance. Whether something better is brewing up for the second part - half as long again as the first - remains to be seen.

It is a bolder start, stronger sounds. However it is also disjointed, and when one set of sounds is completely jetissoned after about 3 minutes and replaced with another, much softer set it feels like a bait-and-switch. More life to it though, even in the softness. There is a more considered air to things which goes a long way - it doesn't feel directionless even if the change up was rather abrupt. The rhythm, I think that is what sets Bitches Brew on a higher plane than the Pharaoh's Dance. Something about the percussion is more compelling, something about how it survives whilst other sounds fade in and out keeps a thread running. There are still breaks in that thread though, clean tears that separate different sections of the piece from each other. This works to cut up the length into smaller chunks and ideally these would have been track breaks, allowing each section to be appreciated for what it is rather than forcing it into some unwieldy whole. I rather like the sections so far as the track hits halfway, but my patience for listening to them all right through in future is probably not there. If they were in practice the shorter 3-5 minute variations that they appear to be in the actual composition then I would happily sit and enjoy many of them.

It's all gone very quiet. There's a lot of busy little staccato sound going on, but all rather soft. This feels like regression, back to the meandering of Pharaoh's Dance. Its the first part of the title track I have not enjoyed in some way and it comes nearing the 20 minute mark. Just such a shame it's all one thing. Even as this phase strains my patience there are bits an pieces to like in there, just like in Dance. It feels like it is dragging on a bit now though and could do with another injection of theme and life as we enter the final stages. I am shivering cold, despite the thermostat reading above 20, and at this point am looking forward to the piece ending so I can shiver and wrap myself warm rather than sit arms-out typing. That reason is secondary to the dirge-like air that the tune has chosen to end on, piercing trumpet cries screaming out over a bleak landscape as the silence draws in.

Well that was disappointing. Anything but classic from my perspective, and the long uninteresting lead out killed any final chance of me wanting to maintain Bitches' Brew for the earlier movements. Hopefully the second disc will be more appealing.