terça-feira, 3 de janeiro de 2012

Jeff Beck - Ambassador Theatre


















Jeff Beck - Ambassador Theatre - 1975

 By Alan Bershaw
After redefining electric guitar during his tenure in The Yardbirds, numerous outstanding permutations of The Jeff Beck Group, and a brief experiment with ex-Vanilla Fudge/Cactus alumni in Beck, Bogart & Appice, Jeff Beck disappeared from the public eye. When he returned in 1975 with his new album, Blow By Blow, it was immediately apparent that Beck was taking an entirely different approach. The album, produced by the legendary George Martin at his AIR Studios, was strictly an instrumental affair with the music clearly heading in a jazz-fusion direction. The results were nothing short of spectacular, gaining Beck a new legion of fans, and Blow By Blow would sail up the charts, soon to become one of the best selling instrumental albums of all time.

When Beck took this exciting new material on the road, he assembled a stellar new quartet featuring the outstanding rhythm section of bassist Wilbur Bascomb and drummer Bernard Purdie. He wisely retained the services of keyboardist Max Middleton, the only mainstay from his previous groups. Middleton's jazzy keyboard parts complimented much of Beck's finest work from the early 1970s, and in this new band he inspired Beck to reach new levels of sophistication. Beck's explorations into this new genre of music were immediately distinctive and would in retrospect prove to be the commercial peak of a long and illustrious career. This recording, from when Jeff Beck and The Mahavishnu Orchestra took to the road together, captures this new era perfectly. Much of the Blow By Blow album is here when it was fresh and new. Even when Beck dips back into his catalogue, older songs are given an altogether new instrumental treatment, bringing out delightful nuances and making them entirely new experiences.

This set, recorded at St. Louis' Ambassador Theater  (St. Louis, MO / may , 11, 1975), was the final night of the first leg of the North American Blow By Blow Tour, when both Jeff Beck and John McLaughlin's Mahavishnu Orchestra toured the continent together, providing audiences with a remarkable double bill of cutting edge jazz/rock fusion. Although not without a few dropouts on the master cassette, this recording captures Beck and one of his most revered bands at a peak moment in time. Following this performance, Beck would return to England for two weeks before embarking on the second leg of the tour at the end of the month.

Jeff Beck - Guitar
Max Middleton - Keyboards
Wilbur Bascomb - Bass
Bernard Purdie - Drums

01. Tuning
02. Constipated Duck (incomplete)
03. She's A Woman
04. Freeway Jam
05. Superstition
06. Cause We've Ended As Lovers
07. Air Blower (Incomplete)
08. Power
09. Got The Feeling

10. Tuning
11. You Know What I Mean
12. Diamond Dust

+@128

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