Mojo (UK)

Peter Hammill

VdGG’s magus salutes Steve Marcus’s free-jazz eruption The Lord’s Prayer (Vortex, 1969).

-

I picked this up in Montreal in ’74. This is how it went when I first listened to it. The album kicks off with an instrument­al take of Hey Jude with barely competent horn playing. Hmm. Then the drums join in… and, what, this drummer [Larry Clark] is either completely mad or can’t drum at all. It stumbles along then a whole big band arrives in a hard edit. Second track is a quartet, Marcus on tenor, Herbie Hancock, Miroslav Vitous and Bob Moses (the “proper” drummer). Musicianly ‘A Team’ fusion of the era. Third. Omigod. Clark is back, drumming and singing a verse of Tom Thumb’s Blues. His singing is worse than his drumming. Only a minute long but dreadful. Straight into wild soprano laid over smooth tenor. End of side one. What is this record about?

Side two. It’s Wild Thing. Marcus moves to electric guitar. He’s not a guitarist. Larry drums, Larry sings. There’s some parpy tenor, not really on the money. It all falls apart after a couple of minutes. Straight into a Vitous compositio­n, Hope. It’s the quartet once more and Marcus shows his (serious) chops. Well, they all do. Um, now? A child’s off-kilter recorder performanc­e of America/God Save The Queen. What?

Finally, in The Lord’s Prayer itself, everything is collected and collaged. Larry’s drumming and singing, in this context, works. In fact, the whole thing works. It wouldn’t make sense without all the non-sense which has preceded it.

Basically this record puts together and takes apart lots of stuff about the making of music. And the conclusion it (sonically) comes to is – you can make music any way you want if it’s done with Enthusiasm and Purpose and Conviction and if you Don’t Give a Damn. Reinvent! I was well on my way to following these dicta when this record came into my life. Once it had done so, I took them deeper into my heart and ran with them. Respect and thanks.

The Charisma Years 1970-1978 is out now. VdGG tour the UK in February 2022.

 ?? ??
 ?? ??
 ?? ??

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from United Kingdom