Word: musicalization
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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EVERY ART has its social commentator. Comic strips have Doonesbury and music has Gil Scott-Heron and Brian Jackson. Listening to a Scott-Heron/Jackson album is an educational experience unrivalled by the "education" obtained from such sources as the makers of Dow Bathroom Cleaner, your local Emmy-award-winning eyewitness news team or your favorite daytime game show. It's an experience that gives insight into answers to questions the game show wouldn't ask or events the news team wouldn't cover. It's really a musical eyeglass cleaner...
...MISTAKE to only rave about the lyrics and ignore the music. Scott-Heron and Jackson are jazz musicians who complement the atmosphere of the lyrics with the rhythms and acoustics of their songs. In "Three Miles Down," a song to politicians about coal-mining, the music has three distinct beats, each one in a lower key than the one played before. "Angel Dust" includes mellow backup vocals, giving the song a light, hallucinatory effect. All of their productions attempt to incorporate the setting into music, a testimony to the genius of their creators. The result is not a sermon...
Scott-Heron and Jackson work together but Scott-Heron has received most of the popular acclaim because the most notable tracks feature his music and lyrics. His music has prompted some to conclude that Scott-Heron is "a verbal John Coltrane," undoubtedly a more accurate description than the "Black Bob Dylan" label. The similarity to Coltrane is slightly evident in "A Prayer For Everybody," the album's most instrumental track. Yet Scott-Heron is a duplicate of no one you have heard before. A true artist can do more than sing the I-love-you-you-love-me routine...
...these one-sided memories. It's rather sad to watch movies in which present day movie stars yearn for the good old days, when "the movies really meant something." It is the same sadness you get when you hear the formula-rock and roll bands eulogizing how the original music is. But as anyone who saw Elvis grow old and ridiculous on the cover of countless magazines already knows, the media in this country can hardly ever be accused of seeking new directions or even of good taste. For the movies and television seem to have had remarkable success...
...striking thing about this album is that, despite its comic appearances (for instance, the gloriously cheesy cover photos), it does not come across like Saturday Night, or Animal House, or even the National Lampoon's Lemmings. The music itself is, for the most part, surprisingly straightforward. With the immediate intention of recording the September concerts, Belushi and Aykroyd took the opportunity to assemble a band of stellar musicians who would back them up in thoroughly professional style. Their collective sound virtually overshadows the few attempts at genuine comedy, although this remains strictly a good-time album if there ever...