Label: Lemon Records (UK), CD LEM 22
Style: Jazz Rock, Afro Rock
Country: London, England (19 August 1939 - 6 October 2019)
Time: 78:03
Format: Flac Tracks 16/44,1 kHz
Size: 520 Mb
For
a change, the late 1960s yielded up a supergroup that lived up to its
hype and then some. Ginger Baker's Air Force was recorded live at Royal
Albert Hall in January of 1970 -- in fact, this may be the best-sounding
live album ever to come out of that notoriously difficult venue -- at a
show that must have been a wonder to watch, as the ten-piece band
blazed away in sheets of sound, projected delicate flute parts behind
multi-layered African percussion, or built their songs up Bolero-like,
out of rhythms from a single instrument into huge jazz-cum-R&B
crescendos. Considering that this was only their second gig, the group
sounds astonishingly tight, which greatly reduces the level of
self-indulgence that one would expect to find on an album where five of
the eight tracks run in excess of ten minutes. There aren't too many
wasted notes or phrases in the 78 minutes of music included here, and
Steve Winwood's organ, Baker, Phil Seamen, and Remi Kabaka's drums, and
the sax playing by Chris Wood, Graham Bond (on alto), and Harold McNair,
all stand out, especially the sax trio's interwoven playing on "Don't
Care." Additionally, Denny Laine plays louder, flashier, more
virtuoso-level guitar than he ever got to turn in with the Moody Blues,
bending notes in exquisite fashion in the opening of Air Force's
rendition of the Cream standard "Toad," crunching away on rhythm
elsewhere, and indulging in some more introspective blues for "Man of
Constant Sorrow." The original CD reissue, which sounded pretty good,
was deleted in the early '90s, but this album has been remastered again
and repackaged as part of the Ginger Baker retrospective Do What You
Like on Polygram's Chronicles series. It's a must-own for jazz-rock,
Afro-fusion, blues-rock, or percussion fans.
(allmusic.com/album/ginger-bakers-air-force-mw0000202606#userReviews)
01. Da Da Man (07:13)
02. Early In The Morning (11:16)
03. Don't Care (12:28)
04. Toad (12:59)
05. Aiko Biaye (13:00)
06. Man Of Constant Sorrow (03:55)
07. Do What You Like (11:39)
08. Doin' It (05:29)
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