Word: sax
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...definitely about nature. Morrison's first non-original since the old Bert Berns days over at Bang Records, the song's basically whimsical nature is belied by a funky, uptempo arrangement right out of Sinatra doing "That's Life." It's the good old uptempo blues: sax solos, blues guitar phrases abound. Morrison torch sings it, bending notes, phrases, whole lines, and finishing with a properly respectful...
...Yardbird." Poor and black, Parker's father early deserted the family; his mother worked as a cleaning woman. By the time he was 13, she had scrimped enough to buy him a saxophone for $45. Silently fingering the battered 1898 sax, held together with tape and rubber bands, he would stand in the alleys outside the clubs waiting to talk to his heroes between sets-a practice that earned his nickname "Yard-bird." (It did not come about, as Russell claims, from a fondness for chicken...
Instead there was Billy Harper and his sax. Odetta moaning about how it's gonna feel "when your biscuit roll is gone." Mandrill's man in the big straw hat talking about 'Oooh shake some boo-die. Get it on. Right on." Pucho and the Latin Soul Brothers making the transition from a mellow "summertime and the livin' is easy" to some Latin and the livin...
...Evening Blue" is the only artistic failure. It's a nice melody, badly realized. The failures are mostly Roger Hawkins's. His snare drum work is flat, and detracts from the overall lightness. So do Rebop's congas. Wood's sax solo is short, disjointed and cliched. The song's saving grace is Steve's guitar. "Evening Blue" is a mood piece, with a pastoral opening out of "John Barleycorn." It would have been successful given the same spare treatment...
...song is brilliantly structured; each transition is smooth and subtle. The rhythm section is once again supremely simple, Winwood's piano phrases take the song through each change in tempo, with a short sax solo improvised off the second statement of the chorus. Wood's a little gimmicky here, as he is all over the album, but the mix makes him unobtrusive as well. He relies on the intensity of the chorus to carry him through. After a restatement of the second theme, the chorus carries the song...