Van Morrison is the closest thing that rock or pop has to a true jazz musician. I'm not talking about instrumental chops or complicated changes. What I mean is that Van has the spirit to open his material up and explore it in thrilling and daring ways.
40 years ago Van Morrison released his seminal work Astral Weeks, which remains one of the most gorgeous and enigmatic albums in rock history. Revisiting this most intimate record decades later with an eleven piece band sounds like a gimmick bound to fail, but Van pulls it off beautifully. The key is that he does not try to replicate what he cannot replicate. His voice has deepened and the atmosphere of the Astral Weeks sessions cannot be reproduced. Nothing is sacred. Like a true jazz musician, Van tweaks and joyfully plays with his masterpiece. Astral Weeks is performed in its entirety, but he switches the song order around, opens the shorter songs up for gorgeous jams and alternatively shortens what were originally longer songs. For instance, Van reworks one of my all time favorite songs, "Slim Slow Slider," wonderfully stretching it out to about twice the length of the original song. While the original has an untouchable stark and sad beauty, here Van speeds the tempo and turns the last three minutes of the song into a spirited jam. And you know what? It sounds so great that I can forgive him for daring to alter perfection.
Van uses his voice like an improvising instrument, slurring words and dancing in and out of verses and choruses. Which is fine, since the original Astral Weeks 's vocals were hard to understand too. To be honest, this really works because of the absolutely stellar support he has at this show. Cellos, violins, guitars, vibraphones and pianos all add wonderful colors, and Van is generous in allowing these superb musicians the space to really stretch out. This may be heresy, but this new reimagining of Astral Weeks is even more interesting musically than the original. Not better, because that would be impossible; but in some respects it is more interesting, and definitely has more groove to it.
Van also gives us a couple of bonus tunes after he has finished with Astral Weeks. We are treated to a pretty "Listen to the Lion"; and do you want to hear great musicians having a lot of fun with a tune? Check out the joyous closer "Common One."
What Van Morrison has done with his 40 year old masterwork is nothing less than miraculous. He does not simply reproduce Astral Weeks in its entirety, he circumvents direct comparison entirely by creating what amounts to a worthy companion piece to the original (versus a mere rehash.) I had begun to take Van Morrison's genius for granted of late, but this record reminds me once again what a singular talent he has been for four decades now.
***** out of *****
No comments:
Post a Comment