Jeff Beck - Blow by Blow (1975)

Jazz rock elegante, creativo y limpio: Blow by Blow de Jeff Beck es un disco que, como dijo alguien por ahí en el facebook, te vuela la cabeza. Un aportazo de Carlos el Menduco para la comunidad cabezona. No se lo pierdan por favor.

Artista: Jeff Beck

Álbum: Blow by Blow
Año: 1975
Género: Jazz Rock / Fusión
Duración: 44:25
Nacionalidad: Inglaterra

Lista de Temas:
1. You Know What I Mean
2. She's a Woman
3. Constipated Duck
4. Air Blower
5. Scatterbrain
6. Cause We've Ended as Lovers
7. Thelonious
8. Freeway Jam
9. Diamond Dust

Alineación:
- Jeff Beck / guitarras eléctricas, bajos
- Max Middleton / teclados
- Phil Chen / bajo
- Richard Bailey / batería, percusiones

Con:
Stevie Wonder / clavinet en "Thelonious"
George Martin / producción (y arreglos en "Scatterbrain" y "Diamond Dust")

Si otros discos en la variada y polifacética carrera del superguitarrista Jeff Beck nos ponen frente a una guitarra virtuosísima pero casi omnipresente (hasta volverlos a veces monótonos), Bloe by Blow es un paradigma de mesura y de diálogo entre los músicos que participan. Y la verdad es que no podría ser de otro modo si detrás de la música está nada menos que George Martin, el productor genial artífice de la revolución Beatle y de muchas otras maravillas, fallecido precisamente hace dos días, así que va este post también como homenaje a este enorme músico (que por supuesto también lo era), creador silencioso de las estructuras invisibles de música alucinante.

Cuando Beck acometió la producción de Blow by Blow ya contaba tras de sí una historia privilegiada como protagonista y creador de la fabulosa segunda generación del rock (primera si consideramos que la de los años 50 es radicalmente diferente a lo que sucedió en la revolución sesentera). Ya había tomado el lugar del dios Clapton en the Yardbirds (por recomendación de Jimmy Page), y colaborado con superestrellas de la época como el mismo Page, Keith Moon, John Paul Jones y Ronnie Wood. Su primer solista, Truth, había salido en 68 y después, entre 69 y 72 había lanzado tres placas con The Jeff Beck Group que, por otro lado, fue plataforma de lanzamiento de la luminosa carrera de Rod Stewart. Luego vino el power trio formado con Bogert y Appice que produjo un disco extraordinario en 73, pero desgraciadamente esa formación no logró sostenerse más allá.

El sonido Beck en cada una de estas etapas cambiaba. Habiendo dejado atrás un sonido muy auténticamente blues que desarrolló con The Yardbirds y con algunos jugueteos de mediados de los sesenta, con The Jeff Beck Group y Beck-Bogert-Appice siembra con tanta fuerza como en los primeros discos de Black Sabbath, las semillas del mejor heavy metal de los setenta, con la diferencia de que mientras Sabbath planteó las temáticas ideológicas y visuales, Beck marcó el camino a seguir en cuanto al sonido y el virtuosismo en las guitarras. Como muchos otros logros de este guitarrista visionario, no se le suelen reconocer aportes tan significativos (ni se trata de un coleccionista de premios y reconocimientos, sino de guitarras y carros).

Por todo esto es destacable y esencial Blow by Blow (disco que está cumpliendo 41 años de maravillar orejas), pues con el aporte hiperprofesional de George Martin y acompañado de musicazos entre los que destaca el tecladista Max Middleton, con el que la guitarra establece diálogos que quedarán como modelo a seguir en la combinación nada sencilla de las dos familias de instrumentos armónicos de amplio registro, Beck logró un conjunto de piezas definitivamente adelantadas a su tiempo en el ámbito del rock y totalmente actuales en el del jazz electrónico de genios como Hancock o McLaughlin. No está de más destacar que no solo realiza dos covers de uno de los reyes del soul, Stevie Wonder, "Cause We've Ended as Lovers" (una balada deliciosa) y "Thelonius" (homenaje al genio del hard bop), sino que en este último tema es el mismo Wonder quien toca el clavinet aunque en el lanzamiento original falta su crédito.

Se trata de un disco totalmente instrumental; si se escuchan unas voces por ahí están atravesadas por un vocoder o son modulaciones de sintetizadores manejados por Middleton. La limpieza del sonido permite distinguir nítidamente cada elemento y apreciar las cualidades de la música. Una aproximación jazzística al cuarteto de rock en la que destacan tiempos complejos y variaciones armónicas que van mucho más allá del lenguaje blusero, no sin descansos divertidos como la versión un poco reggae de "She's a Woman", cover del tema de Lennon y McCartney. Sobre esta estructura rítmica y armónica compleja pero mesurada, se pasea la inagotable creatividad melódica del genio guitarrístico que es Jeff Beck. Un gran disco, parteaguas en la carrera de este monstruo, al que seguiría otro discazo, Wired, antes de entrar en una pausa que se alargaría hasta 1980. Cabezones, no se lo pierdan por favor.

.


Otras reseñas:
Wikipedia

Blow by Blow is the second solo album by British guitarist Jeff Beck, released on Epic Records in 1975, and recorded in October 1974. It was the first under his name alone. An instrumental album, it peaked at No. 4 on the Billboard 200 and has been certified platinum by the RIAA.
After the dissolution of his power trio in the spring of 1974, Beck took time for session work with other groups. In December, a half-hearted "audition" for The Rolling Stones took place, Beck jamming blues with the band for one day, their incompatibility obvious to all, with the guitarist position vacated by Mick Taylor eventually going to ex-Jeff Beck Group bassist Ronnie Wood^.
During this period, Beck decided to record an all-instrumental album, bringing back keyboardist Max Middleton from the second Jeff Beck Group and hiring George Martin to produce. According to Carmine Appice, who played with Beck in Beck, Bogert & Appice, he was involved in the writing and recording process of "Blow By Blow" but his parts were edited out after a dispute with Beck's management. The fourth key contributor to Blow by Blow after Beck, Middleton, and Martin was Stevie Wonder, who gave Beck his songs "Cause We've Ended As Lovers" and "Thelonius", with Wonder playing clavinet on the latter uncredited. The former song appeared on Wonder's album Stevie Wonder Presents: Syreeta, made with then-wife Syreeta Wright, while Wonder never recorded "Thelonius" himself. A cover of the Beatles song "She's A Woman" was selected, as well as a composition by Bernie Holland of the group Hummingbird consisting of musicians from the second Beck Group. The other five tracks were band originals with Beck and Middleton the main writers, and the last track on each side featured string arrangements by Martin. Beck dedicated "Cause We've Ended As Lovers" to fellow guitarist Roy Buchanan, with an acknowledgment to Wonder.
On 27 March 2001, a remastered edition for compact disc was reissued by Legacy Records, Epic and its parent label Columbia Records now a division of Sony Music Entertainment.

Mark Kirschenmann en Allmusic:

Blow by Blow typifies Jeff Beck's wonderfully unpredictable career. Released in 1975, Beck's fifth effort as a leader and first instrumental album was a marked departure from its more rock-based predecessors. Only composer/keyboardist Max Middleton returned from Beck's previous lineups. To Beck's credit, Blow by Blow features a tremendous supporting cast. Middleton's tasteful use of the Fender Rhodes, clavinet, and analog synthesizers leaves a soulful imprint. Drummer Richard Bailey is in equal measure supportive and propulsive as he deftly combines elements of jazz and funk with contemporary mixed meters. Much of the album's success is also attributable to the excellent material, which includes Middleton's two originals and two collaborations with Beck, a clever arrangement of Lennon and McCartney's "She's a Woman," and two originals by Stevie Wonder. George Martin's ingenious production and string arrangements rival his greatest work. Beck's versatile soloing and diverse tones are clearly the album's focus, and he proves to be an adept rhythm player. Blow by Blow is balanced by open-ended jamming and crisp ensemble interaction as it sidesteps the bombast that sank much of the jazz-rock fusion of the period. One of the album's unique qualities is the sense of fun that permeates the performances. On the opening "You Know What I Mean," Beck's stinging, blues-based soloing is full of imaginative shapes and daring leaps. On "Air Blower," elaborate layers of rhythm, duel lead, and solo guitars find their place in the mix. Propelled by the galvanic rhythm section, Beck slashes his way into "Scatterbrain," where a dizzying keyboard and guitar line leads to more energetic soloing from Beck and Middleton. In Stevie Wonder's ballad "Cause We've Ended as Lovers," Beck variously coaxes and unleashes sighs and screams from his guitar in an aching dedication to Roy Buchanan. Middleton's aptly titled "Freeway Jam" best exemplifies the album's loose and fun-loving qualities, with Beck again riding high atop the rhythm section's wave. As with "Scatterbrain," Martin's impeccable string arrangements enhance the subtle harmonic shades of the closing "Diamond Dust." Blow by Blow signaled a new creative peak for Beck, and it proved to be a difficult act to follow. It is a testament to the power of effective collaboration and, given the circumstances, Beck clearly rose to the occasion. In addition to being a personal milestone, Blow by Blow ranks as one of the premiere recordings in the canon of instrumental rock music.

Simon Warner en PopMatters:

In the annals of British rock guitarists it is hard to escape the spectre of Clapton, Page and Beck, a great triumvirate, linked not just because their axe-wielding has left a considerable mark on both sides of the Atlantic, but also because they all shared roots with the same band. In the pre-psychedelia years, when white men confirmed that the blues was not actually beyond them, the Yardbirds managed to recruit three of the outstanding amplified pickers of that generation.
Yet the years have been kinder to the man they called God, richer to the fellow who forged Led Zeppelin once the New Yardbirds had run out of steam. Jeff Beck has instead remained a marginal figure, a guitarists’ guitarist maybe but no longer in the same division as his illustrious ex-colleagues, a Rock’n'Roll Hall of Fame inductee but a player whose rock’n'roll fame is rather in the past. But fame can be a curse—Clapton and Page have hardly escaped the scars of celebrity—while a well-founded reputation can bring accolades that are no less deeply felt, just quieter and easier to bear. Don’t look Beck, as they might say.
By the middle Seventies, Beck had followed the rock fairground as electric blues became heavy metal or progressive rock and seemed to have found his niche. The eponymous group he led and the supergroup doodlings with former Vanilla Fudge supremos Tim Bogert and Carmen Appice had established large live followings.
So it was something of a surprise when Beck switched horses and decided to record an album of jazz-tinged instrumentals, perhaps to remind people that his Fender was not merely a war machine but an instrument capable of subtleties and that he was an instrumentalist with more than just blues riffs in his travelling case.
The result was 1975’s Blow by Blow to be followed the next year by Wired and, surprise, surprise, Beck’s creative diversion proved a great deal more than just an artistic success. The two long players became the two best-selling records of his career and really set the tone for his subsequent musical life—the rock antics were largely left behind and his journey as an fusion interpreter of quality commenced.
Fair enough, the time was ripe for this side-track. John McLaughlin had brought the grain of the guitar to Miles Davis’ amplified experiments before forming the Mahavishnu Orchestra, a band who blended the virtuosity of jazz with the worlds of rock, funk and the East. Frank Zappa, too, had taken rock licks into a higher universe in a string of post-Mothers space-trips. So perhaps Beck’s shift was just a case of Zeitgeist fever.
Whatever, for Blow By Blow, Beck was re-united with Max Middleton, keyboards man with his earlier self-named combo, and brought on board bassist Phil Chenn and drummer Richard Bailey, both of whom had worked out with the white British soul singer Jess Roden. The results were more promising than anyone could have hoped to expect.
Underpinned by a solid, unfussy rhythm section, Beck proceeded to weave a spell on a potent range of self-penned and out-sourced tunes. The guitarist and pianist shared composing honours on the opener, the sleek syncopated funk of “You Know What I Mean”, but changed gear on a reggae-fied re-make of the Lennon and McCartney classic “She’s a Woman”, slinky, sexy and distinctively branded by the talking guitar synth, a fresh weapon and rather in vogue that season. Peter Frampton had adopted the very same voice tube around the same time.
But the Beck album, overseen by the production skills of one George Martin, was about much more than technological gimmickry. He had also enlisted a writer at the height of his powers, Stevie Wonder himself, and the sinuous phrasing of “Cause We’ve Ended as Lovers”, deliciously fringed by Middleton’s electric keys, showed the band leader off at his very best. Wonder also threw in the Monk tribute “Thelonius”.
By 1976, the scene had changed. The Mahavishnus line-up had been re-jigged and Beck would be the principal beneficiary, engaging synthesiser master Jan Hammer and also adding the new Orchestra drummer Narada Michael Walden to his crew. The results, aired on Wired, were consequently rather different.
Hammer became writer-in-chief and his electronics coat almost everything in an artificial varnish; the clear, uncluttered lines of Blow by Blow, with Beck very much the featured artist, had been consumed by Moog trills, lean guitar lines submerged in the glutinous washes of the ex-McLaughlin sideman—Hammer blows, if you like.
Wired is not unlistenable by any means but played side by side with the earlier work-out, it has a cloying quality, redeemed occasionally on the Middleton penned “Led Boots”, the Hammer-less “Head for the Backstage Pass” and the Mingus celebration, a re-hash of “Goodbye Pork Pie Hat”, itself a farewell to Lester Young.
In short, these re-issued, re-mastered volumes, draw attention to the changes that were infecting the jazz-rock interface at this time. The synthesiser, enormously versatile yet plastic in tone and timbre, had become the fashionable tool of fusion and by the second disc Beck’s instrumental voice is no longer centre stage—to the album’s detriment.

Dave Marsh en Rolling Stone:

Jeff Beck seems finally to have figured out that he is not going to replace the great Sixties group which bore his name and featured Mickey Waller, Rod Stewart, Nicky Hopkins and Ron Wood. After some trying moments with a couple of abortive bands whose principal purpose was to give him someone to play with, this all-instrumental album points a newer, healthier direction for the man whose playing is more emblematic of the Yardbirds than either Jimmy Page, who followed him, or Eric Clapton, whom he succeeded.
Beck's music here is new only for him. It is closely connected to Stevie Wonder's, Herbie Hancock's and perhaps most of all, to that of the Mahavishnu Orchestra, his current touring partner. The only axe Beck has to grind is his Gibson; there are no statements here, only his usual flurry of notes. His affection for Max Middleton's keyboard playing seems more sensible than it did with the group that made Rough and Ready. Middleton is derivative of Chick Corea and Hancock, but it hardly matters. His principal function is to complement Beck and he does that well. Richard Bailey's percussion is a little freer than it needs to be, often as not, but then, this is not rock & roll.
Aside from "She's a Woman," where Beck's guitar literally sings a verse, there is little here to distinguish one song from another. But the tunes blend together pleasantly and the second side, particularly, contains some hints that Beck may finally have found a mode in which he is once more comfortable. His exhibitionism can find full play within the ensemble instrumental complex, as it never could when it had to worry about being upstaged by a vocalist. And in places, he is even lyrical.
George Martin produced, but without orchestral charts to arrange, he seems to have had very little to do, other than balance the mixes. Chances are that Beck will make better records, if he chooses to continue to work within the framework established here. The important thing about Blow by Blow, however, is that Beck seems finally to have found something to do with his talent other than waste it.

Y acá: http://www.gibson.com/News-Lifestyle/Features/en-us/georgemartinonthemakingof.aspx pueden leer una entrevista con George Martin sobre su trabajo con Jeff Beck.

Acá "Constipated Duck"

...

No se pierdan este video de "Scatterbrain" en vivo con Vinnie Colaiuta en los tambores y la luminosa Tal Wilkenfeld en el bajo (no sé quién es el tecladista pero es otro capo)