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Ars Longa Vita Brevis

Ars Longa Vita Brevis

The Nice

CBSP, 1969

America

2nd Amendment

Daddy Where Did I Come From

Little Arabella

Happy Freuds

Intermezzo from the Karelia Suite

Son Edito El Gruva

Ars Longa Vita Brevis:

Prelude

1st Movement: Awakening

2nd Movement: Realization

3rd Movement: Acceptance

4th Movement: Denial

Coda: Extension to the Big Move

Ars Longa Vita Brevis is one half pop farce and one half classical masterpiece that echoes the ambitious work Keith Emerson would attempt with ELP. For now the Nice is content to play progressive rock games for side one, before letting a full classical suite take up side two. It’s essentially the “Keith Emerson album”, as his piano and organ work are critical to the tracks, replacing a lead guitar, and his vocals are most prevalent, except where the higher backing vocals of Lee Jackson are present.

The beginning of the album is a bang-on rendition of Leonard Bernstein’s America. Emerson’s fingers fly over organ keys as Brian Davison and Lee Jackson struggle to hold their own, though they do. It’s the dexterity of the playing that carries the song which is otherwise repetitive.

The album’s most joyous track is the jazzy Little Arabella, which further adds a comic flavor to to the record after the jokey punch of America and the jocular toot that is Daddy Where Did I Come From. Arabella is a wild child of the 60’s, unconstrained and rearing to go. Emerson’s vocals are delivered practically in your ear, making the track unsettling and a bit bizarre, but the lyrics are clever and excellent, and the omnipresent organ fleshes out the song with musical color. Drummer Brian Davison keeps locked on to the tempo with a light swing of brushes, while the bass works its way up and down the frets. A randy piano also bangs its way through the track, and there are a few humorous sounds (“smoke coming out of her head” is accompanied by a hissing). The track dissolves into a tick-tock groove while the three members of the Nice take turns saying absurd things, until the babble overpowers the instruments and the song finishes.

Happy Freuds is an excellent finger-pointing song as it rocks on a steady, bouncing beat before dissolving into cymbal rolls and organ powered experimentation. The thick accent of lead vocalist Keith Emerson dominates the song, as he does on all track but the suite on side two. 

There’s almost too much instrumental work on the record for its own good, as many of them are a bit dreary and not particularly inspired, trying as hard they can to be pretentious and failing. Instead it comes across as an awkward mix of jazz drumming and classical organ-eering. Nevertheless, the album gets points from the critics for being diverse and displaying musical skill.

Ars Longa Vita Brevis is a dense record, but it doesn’t leave much to talk about, it’s simply too good. It’s a bit dull, but technically flawless and offers an avenue into prog that doesn’t challenge the listener.

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Crown of Creation

Crown of Creation

Jefferson Airplane

RCA, 1968

Lather

In Time

Triad

Star Track

Share a Little Joke

Chushingura

If You Feel

Crown of Creation

Ice Cream Phoenix

Greasy Heart

The House At Pooneil Corners

Crown of Creation is a solid rock album, but it could have done with more experimentation like After Bathing At Baxter’s or more rhetoric like on Volunteers. Nonetheless, the record opens up the doors of opportunity for the band, who get even heavier in their sound and their drug use as the decade comes to a close. Creation is a signpost for which direction the band is going to go. 

Creation opens with a fantastic track called Lather about the complexities of growing older, specifically, hitting 30. Grace Slick gives her most haunting performance yet as the musicians gently keep time behind her. Her voice is sickly sweet and chiding, mocking poor “Lather”- coming across like velvet through the speakers. The whole song smells of tasteful overproduction, with necessary sound effects being added to spice things up, evident in the tank’s gunfire or the click-clacking of typewriter keys that embellish the track. Based on Spencer Dryden’s turning 30, the narrative is most interesting, threatening his childish behavior with the responsibilities of adulthood. He’s no longer young, but he’s not at all any wiser for being older. The humor of the song disguises its dire message, and it ends in the gentle babble of “adult” conversation.

The footnote to side one is the video nasty synthesizer drone of Chushingura. Random clicks (that sound like scratches to the record’s surface) and drum beats ring out as guitar strings are picked and a synth (or perhaps an organ) whines dissonantly. The track has no purpose but to frighten the listener, although its inclusion is strange. Despite the darker nature of Jefferson Airplane revealed on the album, it’s inherently pleasant drug music. Chushingura is a scary foray into unexplained territory. Brief, at only 1:17, it nonetheless reinforces that this album is perhaps not the sunny psychedelic rock of previous records.

The swing of Crown of Creation is reminiscent of earlier Airplane endeavors. Based off of John Wyndham’s The Chrysalids, the song tackles the growing gap between the old and intolerant, and the revolutionary young, a theme that would crop up on 1969’s revolutionary album Volunteers. While the last lyric implies a love motif, the majority of the song is spent pointing fingers at the older generations, who “cannot tolerate our minds” and ways of being. Stability is achieved by the older people at the expense of themselves, they become “fossils”. The philosophical themes of the song are somewhat eroded by its brevity (the lyrics are three stanzas), but at closer examination it does drive its point home.

What’s most missed from the album is the material left off the record. The seven minute jam based around a blues riff that is Sydney the Space Pig, and the merry experimentation of Would You Like A Snack, penned with Frank Zappa, are conspicuous absences that emerged as bonus material on later albums. These songs could have spiced up the rather uniform sound of the tracks on Crown of Creation. Overall, Creation is overshadowed by the other herculean efforts of 1968, namely Beggar’s Banquet and The Beatles. Had the band been more ambitious, the album could have stood the test of time, but it hasn’t very well.

Of note is the material that came with the record, a portrait of a dog, “Brumus” on one side, and lyrics and credits on the other.

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Thirds

Thirds

The James Gang

ABC Dunhill, 1971

Walk Away

Yadig

Things I Could Be

Dreamin’ In the Country

It’s All The Same

Midnight Man

Again

White Man\Black Man

Live My Life Again

The Cleveland power trio the James Gang rocks on their third album. The band, despite its rock and roll reputation presents a diverse package, from the soul stirring finale of Live My Life Again, to the gentle waltz of Yadig. The album is not short on rock and roll cuts, however, the lead off track being an example of a fine one.

Walk Away is a spot-on impression of Danish hard rock\prog group Highway, busting out tricky, syncopated grooves for the choruses on guitar and drums. The rest of the track is fairly simple. The song opens with a smoldering country rock riff, before the entrance of reedy lead vocals by Joe Walsh, who also pleads lead guitar. The band is locked in and powerful, falling into the same groove that made songs like Funk #49 so popular. The harmonies on the song are not angelic, but are highly unsual, shimmering slightly. 

From the excitement of Walk Away comes some entertaining filler in the form of Yadig, which gently waltzes its way through to an unsatisfying conclusion on an unresolved note. Vibraphone, also played by Walsh, is the highlight of the track, setting a mock-jazz tone to the entirety of the song. To further reinforce the jazziness, drummer Jim Fox switches to gently whispering brushes. 

Country rock continues to spice up the record, namely on Walk Away and Dreamin’ In the Country. The album makes an abrupt turn away from the country with the side one closer It’s All The Same. Like a warm-up for Live My Life Again, the track relies on adept brass lines and mellow, yet powerful acoustic guitar and the signature vocals of Joe Walsh. Block harmonies are also featured for the first time out of the context of Walk Away. It’s over quickly, which is too bad, but paves the way for the fascinating opener to side two, entitled Midnight Man, a song featuring vocal play between Walsh and Mary Sterpka, whose soulful voice is reminiscent of the power displayed by Merry Clayton on Gimme Shelter, though Sterpka doesn’t emote quite as much as Clayton.

Despite the fact there are eight other excellent tracks to choose from, it’s the album’s grand ending in Live My Life Again that gets the prize for being the best song on the album. It doesn’t embrace any of the characteristics that came before it, no driving guitar, no organ, just a clean, simple groove that follows very basic chord changes. The song begins slowly and very relaxed as Walsh delivers a sorrowful goodbye to a love interest, though their separation means more freedom. It’s freedom at a cost, and the melancholy nature of the record demonstrates that. Over heraldic brass, the James Gang harmonizes in sweeping unison, with a soaring “aah” before each repeat of the title, Live My Life Again. It’s this lyric that makes up most of the song, but its beauty makes up for it.

While predicted to be more commercially successful than it was (it only achieved gold status), Thirds is a particularly good listen in a world of 1970’s hard rock that gets repetitive and uninspired quickly. The James Gang shatters notions of what a hard rock band should sound like on their albums, while in tandem demonstrating excellent musical taste and skill.

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A Group Called Smith

A Group Called Smith

Smith

ABC Dunhill, 1969

Let’s Get Together

I Don’t Believe (I Believe)

Tell Him No

Who Do You Love

Baby It’s You

Last Time

I Just Wanna Make Love To You

Mojalesky Ridge

Let’s Spend the Night Together

I’ll Hold Out My Hand

The formula on A Group Called Smith is very simple and follows the Vanilla Fudge model- grab a hit pop song, slow it down some, and add organ and impassioned vocals, and any song suddenly becomes dynamite.  The Los Angelinos, Smith, behind this masterful record manage to make even the stodgiest of songs fun and accessible, including the Youngbloods’ Let’s Get Together and the old pop standard Baby It’s You. Initially discovered by teenybopper Del Shannon, the band cut two records and then split, the band’s finest efforts are encapsulated on this album, draped in organ and chunky guitar riffs. It’s unfortunate that this album does not include the band’s most well-known cover, that of The Weight which made it onto the Easy Rider soundtrack because of legal problems with the Band.

The album’s opener is a suitably apocalyptic rendition of Let’s Get Together. The song’s hypnotic central riff fades in, before a full band enters with the lead vocals. On the choruses, the rest of the band, and an even stronger than usual organ, provide the central theme “C’mon people now\smile on your brother\everybody get together\try to love one another right now”. Even the drummer loosens up on his groove, providing a few noisy cymbal crashes. The song, like most of the other tracks on the record, is just on the verge of a 19th nervous breakdown, but the band stays well in-control and guides to the fade-out before it can detonate. What follows are a series of tracks that don’t match the intensity of the leadoff number.

The organ is the star of this show, though lead vocalist Gayle McCormick makes an impressive try to take the crown. On Baby It’s You she demonstrates her vocal abilities, screeching and falling all over the lyrics, powered by the sound of a magnificent organ.

Coming in out of the stormclouds that surrounded I Just Wanna Make Love To You, Mojaleskey Ridge is the best track on the album, with a heavy organ pounding through the chords, backed up by punching horns. It opens with a uniform pulsing of guitar and bass, with a slight guitar rhythm in the background. Lyrically, the song takes a story of a catastrophic flood and adds a little dark humor- “plenty to drink\ain’t nobody thirsty”, and the villager’s luck turns even further at the end of the song: “Good God! It’s an earthquake!” The track ends the same way it began, with a uniform vamp, as the organist goes crazy over the three major chords in the tune. The song coalesces into white noise and burns out quickly.

The album closes with a tender, Motown-inspired (at least in this rendition) love song entitled I’ll Hold Out My Hand. More sweeping brass lines give goosebumps, and Gayle’s vocals carry the earnestness and sincerity the protagonist is attempting to convey throughout the track. It opens a lot mellower than the other tracks on the record, though the first side’s I Don’t Believe (I Believe) gives it a run for its money.

If this album was to win an Oscar, it should be sure to thank the diverse collection of songwriters, Larry Moss and his organ, Jerry Carter and his noisy bass, and Gayle McCormick and her stunning vocal performance. While Smith owes their songs to other people, they make them entirely their own in one of the most impressive cover performances this side of Vanilla Fudge. Their followup effort, Minus-Plus, contains nowhere near as much fun and musical potential as the band’s debut- it’s A Group Called Smith.

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Long Time Coming

A Long Time Coming

The Electric Flag

Columbia, 1968

Killing Floor

Groovin’ Is Easy

Over-Lovin’ You

She Should Have Just

Wine

Texas 

Sittin’ In Circles

You Don’t Realize

Another Country

Easy Rider

The minor supergroup The Electric Flag follows a tradition of new electric acid blues groups like Paul Butterfield Blues Band and the Blues Project. The Flag then fuses these elements with psychedelic soul stylings like those of Sly and the Family Stone and the Chambers Brothers to create an interesting jambalaya of sound. The album features such dynamic players as Buddy Miles and Nick Gravenites, as well as Mike Bloomfield. Richie Havens also guests on sitar.

The record fades in with a clip of Lyndon Johnson announcing that he is speaking on behalf of the dignity of mankind, which is followed by a brief laugh track and applause, a mild political statement. The band then launches is into their brass-heavy interpretation of Killing Floor, whose lines “I should have quit you” are directed squarely at the sitting President of the United States. The track whirs to a stop, as though the record itself has suddenly stopped moving, but instead the listener is treated to the best song on the album. Groovin’ Is Easy is a far better track, and uses its horn lines far more effectively, raising goosebumps. The lyrics themselves are minimal and uninteresting, but it’s the music that truly sets this song above what comes after and before it on record. Stylistically, it shifts. From the groovy, funky main riff the band seamlessly transitions into a mock bagpipe drone, followed by a tip of the cap to pompous anthems, which then plops the listener back at the beginning riff. Backing vocals chirp unusually as the lead vocalist (it doesn’t actually say who it is)ad libs his way into the fade-out. 

Also on side one sits Over-Lovin’ You, a Motown inspired track with plenty of tambourine and blaring horns. There’s also a rave-up ending to side one with Wine,which sounds old fashioned in its recording here. The band nonetheless manages to imbue the song with high energy, as though they’re competing for a slot to play the song live at Mardi Gras (the city of New Orleans being the location central to the song).

Side two opens with an impassioned blues that incorporates silly lyrics “you make me feel like a Ringling Brothers circus clown”, for example, into a very serious blues number. The song is called Texas- the location where the vocalist “just got in from”. It mopes along, trudging depressed into the future, the horns and guitar writhing in agony, with Buddy Miles or Nick Gravenites’ vocals manic and full of pain.

The album rumbles closed with the powerful experimental medley entitled Another Country, whose footnote is the subtle acoustic song snatch, Easy Rider. 

Without the dynamic horn section, and indeed the all around talent of some of the players (Buddy Miles springs to mind), A Long Time Coming would have fallen quite flat if it had to rely on lyrical content alone. Instead it’s a masterful work that stands as a monument to sixties experimentation with musical form. The album also dates itself with its wonderful, purple tinged cover. It’s got the band’s logo emblazoned in red bubbly cursive, proudly proclaiming itself a unique “American Music Band”. This floats above the head of a groovy looking gal in heavy eyeliner, presumably in the nude. Both the sound and the look of the record give it a place in time, a place it’s most certainly worthy of.

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They Only Come Out At Night

They Only Come Out at Night

Edgar Winter Group

Epic, 1972

Hangin’ Around

When It Comes

Alta Mira

Free Ride

Undercover Man

Round and Round

Rock n’ Roll Boogie Woogie Blues

Autumn

We All Had A Real Good Time

Frankenstein

Edgar Winter Group’s success appeared to be flash in the pan, as They Only Come Out At Night (a self-deprecating joke to Winter’s albinism) generated two hits, Frankenstein and Free Ride, but did not produce a strong followup. The album is mostly psychedelic blues rock (think Big Brother and the Electric Flag, and just a step up from the Blues Project). Country rock also influences the album, and homage to Winter’s Texas roots, it can be presumed.

Most of the tracks on the album aren’t noteworthy, following predictable chord changes and falling into the three minutes or less pit. Free Ride is the first song outside the trap, providing a soundtrack to any excellent road trip. It’s preceded by the Latin rock mocking Alta Mira, which, equipped with a goofy fade-out ending, is more a joke than a serious song. From the confetti of the Mira party comes the catchy guitar groove of Free Ride. A snare drum raps along pertly on the quarter notes, before opening up to the easy-to-sing, easy-to-enjoy chorus. It’s a mild call for revolution, with lyrics like “nobody’s winning at this kind of game\we’ve got to do bette it’s time to begin”. What makes the song so sweet is its catchy ascending harmonies and dual lead guitar solos. There’s even a little Sly and the Family Stone screaming thrown in for good effect. While the track barely lasts long, it leaves a memorable impression, it’s the sort of song one lifts the needle back to the beginning of once it’s finished. Free Ride is bookended by the guitar mayhem that is Undercover Man, a sexual innuendo laced rock song that growls and snarls its way through. There’s a little help from female backing vocals (either that or the EWG has really great falsetto backing vocal abilities). Regardless of who’s backing the track, it’s an intense thrill ride, hitting new heights in energy as the long fade-out begins.

Where the album really hits its stride is in the prog-oriented track Frankenstein, where Edgar Winter shows off his musical abilities, skating from one instrument to the next during the extended vamp. A quick downward tumble from the drums and guitar and the famous, crunchy guitar riff is kicked in, which seems to have no beginning and no end, flying from one theme to another. The lack of a theme, besides the initial riff, could be the reason the song is a “Frankenstein”, an assemblage of parts that seamlessly fit together into one whole being. As the key-tar descends look a UFO, an extended drum fill takes place about three quarters of the way through the song, which heralds a tremendous, ripping return to the main themes. And of course, who could forget the massive build-up that is the ending.

While it’s not a particularly good album, the inclusion of the two hit singles makes it redeemable. The Edgar Winter Group proves they’re capable of producing sounds other than driving blues rock, which is fine, but gets monotonous quickly.

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Mystery to Me

Mystery To Me

Fleetwood Mac

Reprise, 1973

Emerald Eyes

Believe Me

Just Crazy Love

Hypnotized

Forever

Keep On Going

The City

Miles Away

Somebody

The Way I Feel

For Your Love

Why

Fleetwood Mac has an uncanny knack for transforming ordinary pop songs into highly interesting pieces of art. This is particularly evident on 1973’s Mystery To Me which tackles a variety of different stylistic approaches, though one theme is consistent on the first side- the use of lots of reverb on certain drums. Once again, a penguin makes it onto the cover of a Fleetwood Mac record, lurking deviously behind the aged philosopher on the back cover. Previous albums with penguins include Penguin and Future Games.

The diversity on the album is amazing, touching prog, island music, funk, and pop rock, and the diversity starts out with the funky multi-layered track Emerald Eyes which kicks off the album. Eyes incorporates the album’s title into the lyrics, as the antagonist remains a “mystery” to the protagonist. Believe Me, the second track, also works around pop conventions, transcending pop and approaching progressive rock in its final section. The fade-out is faintly reminiscent of the Moody Blues, with a strong central piano line built around soaring guitars and steady, rolling drums. Despite their experimentation, the band quickly drops back to Earth with the schmaltzy pop of Just Crazy Love which offers nothing more than a few token lines about love and the like before disappearing as quickly as it came, thankfully.

While not a major success, Mystery to Me spawned a track that made its way onto FM radio, the swinging Hypnotized. It begins with a drum groove as a hook-, think of it as a less complex version of what Paul Simon did with 50 Ways To Leave Your Lover. The track is just plain cool- contemporary sounding and cold. It rhythmically mimics Bill Withers’ Do It Good, but without the warmth of that cut. Like Bill Withers’ Ain’t No Sunshine, Hypnotized feels current and fresh, while the rest of the album sounds like a period piece. 

Also looking ahead is the track Forever, which sounds like a slightly less tacky version of the Tide Is High, rocking an “island” rhythm. The tune is the most interesting on the album, with a warm tropical feel contrasting starkly with the vocal delivery, which is swallowed and cool, not unlike a song sung by the Velvet Underground. There’s limited comprehensibility, but yet the song still sounds excellent.

Fleetwood Mac looks forward with their album, but they cannot help but include a brief glance backward, updating the Yardbirds’ For Your Love as the album’s penultimate track. It’s an interesting fusion of old and new, with innocent pop sensibilities coming through, and being dwarfed in the shadow of expansive guitar solos and an intriguing drum line that relies heavily on cymbals and tom tom.

While Rumours became Fleetwood Mac’s overnight sensation, it’s albums like Mystery To Me that lay the groundwork for their magnum opus. In some ways, Fleetwood’s earlier albums are better, demonstrating an evolution of sound that leads up to their blockbuster.

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The Soft Parade

The Soft Parade

The Doors

Elektra, 1969

Tell All The People

Touch Me

Shaman’s Blues

Do It

Easy Ride

Wild Child 

Runnin’ Blue

Wishful Sinful

The Soft Parade

The Soft Parade picks up where Waiting for the Sun left off. It’s 1969, but the Doors have hardly changed much. The instrumentation has grown more diverse, the inclusion of brass and strings on this album is a new feature, but the Doors are still a vehicle for Morrison’s frightening imagination, as they were from the outset. While not a major hit as an album, it does feature three noteworthy pieces (Tell All The People, Touch Me), including an ambitious sequel to The End, The Soft Parade itself. 

However, to start the album, it’s not Jim’s twisted poetry but a watered down call for revolution crafted by Robby Krieger. Initially embellished with the lines “tell all the people\get your guns”, Tell All The People was modified by a leery Jim Morrison into a more utopian vision. The song is bright and sunny, with brass and elegant piano backing Morrison up as he croons and crows his way through lines about setting people free, coming with me, that sort of jazz. It’s hard to imagine the song as the revolutionary call to action Krieger intended it to be, especially framed with trumpet fanfare and joyous group harmonies. It also loses its sincerity when it sits in front of a number that is one of the schmaltziest the band ever recorded. While the Doors unleash during Touch Me, it’s incredibly restrained and lush, as though written for the Las Vegas lounge act. Its central rhythm is driving and embellished with some solid drumming from Densmore, but as soon as the horns enter, it becomes evident that this song isn’t a worthy outtake from The Doors, whose Latin-eqsue rhythms were central to many of the songs. Instead the listener is treated to a mildly tongue-in-cheek romp punctuated by a massive buildup  at the end. This build up is the song’s most exciting feature. On the final four punches from the whole band in unison, Morrison contributes a slightly hidden “Stronger than dirt”, a reference to the slogan for the cleaner Ajax at the time. This is an insult to the rest of the group who wanted to give Buick permission to use their song Light My Fire in a commercial. Morrison vetoed the idea, and noting that the final four notes of the song matched Ajax’s jingle perfectly, added his own commentary to the situation.

The rest of side one is more of Morrison’s poetry, which, despite being the focal point of three previous albums, does not feel tired. Side two opens with a funky number entitled Wild Child, which is closed by a sarcastic query: if “you” remember Africa. The track that follows is Runnin’ Blue. Unusually the first lines of Runnin’ Blue are a ghostly work song gospel. “Poor Otis is dead and gone” Morrison moans, before another happy, but high tension, pop song come to the fore.

The Soft Parade itself is a slow procession of songs-snatches strung together in a bewildering array of supposed symbolism. But who really knows what Morrison is alluding to in his eight minute epic? It opens with a fire and brimstone preacher chiding the listener they cannot “petition the Lord with prayer”, ably played by Jim Morrison. It slides into a spooky guitar piano and guitar figure, for a haunting harpsichord driven section. This is followed by a positively progressive passage which continues to build the intensity of the track, firing off a tirade of American dream jargon, before swinging into more surrealism from Morrison. Its finest moment is the funky Latin jam that concludes the song. While it doesn’t carry some of the symbolic weight of earlier in the track, its the most relatable piece in the 8:36 song.

The Soft Parade is the last truly psychedelic record the Doors would make as Morrison slips further and further into madness, and the rest of the band turns to more commercial pursuits. Morrison Hotel and L.A. Woman are outfitted with some decent music-making, but it’s Parade where the party ends for the Doors.