Label: Warner Music (Japan), WPZR-30373/4
Style: Instrumental, Blues Rock, Jazz Funk, Jazz Rock
Country: Surrey, England (24 June 1944 - 10 January 2023)
Time: 49:39
Format: Flac Tracks 16/44,1 kHz
Size: 308 Mb
Charts: UK #21, AUS #49, CAN #9, FRA #74, GER #30, JPN #9, KOR #46, NL #77, SWE #35, US #11.
Of
the three artists who emerged as "guitar gods" on the British rock
scene of the 1960s—all three coming up through the same group, The
Yardbirds—Jeff Beck is, more than perennial favorites Eric Clapton and
Jimmy Page, the one who has taken the most risks throughout his career.
They don't always work, either; on the other hand, his performance at
the Ronnie Lane ARMS concert in 1983 may have been less than a
resounding success, but the guitarist deserved major props for going out
there and going for it, as opposed to Clapton's classy but safe set and
Page's embarrassing attempt to turn "Stairway to Heaven" into an
instrumental. All the more reason, then, for the long overdue critical
and popular acclaim for Performing This Week... Live at Ronnie Scott's
(Eagle Records, 2008) and Beck's ensuing, sold-out 2009 world tour. And
all the more reason, too, to celebrate Emotion & Commotion, his
first studio record in seven years.
More than most—and certainly more
than Clapton and Page—Beck's distinctly un-guitar god-like and melodic,
non-poser approach to guitar has sung out with all the wrenched emotion
and nuanced inflection of the human voice, and he's never been as truly
human as he is on Emotion & Commotion. It may disappoint those who
prefer a harder-edged Beck but in this combination of arrangements for
orchestra and guitar, cinematic originals and reinvented classics, Beck
has never sounded more exposed, more fragile. He may not demonstrate the
guitar pyrotechnics of his peers, but the long evolution of his
distinctive tone and allegiance to the strength of melody—dating as far
back as 1975's Blow By Blow (Epic, 1975) and the enduring "'Cause We've
Ended As Lovers" and, even earlier, on his surprising version of
"Morning Dew" with Rod Stewart from his 1968 debut,Truth (Epic)—has, in
many ways, been leading to this very point.
Interspersed with group
tracks that, amongst others, feature his touring band of the past couple
of years alongside guest vocalists like Joss Stone and Imelda May, are
four strictly orchestrated tracks, representing some of Beck's most
painfully beautiful playing to date. Ranging from the tender traditional
opener, "Corpus Christi Carol," and Puccini's poignant "Nessun Dorm,"
to music from two films—The Wizard of Oz's iconic "Somewhere Over the
Rainbow" and the more recent Atonement's "Elegy for Dunkirk," where
Beck's guitar intertwines so seamlessly with Olivia Safe's soaring
operatic vocal as to join the two together as one voice—Beck manages to
find the true core of the music and of his own playing, delivered with
spare elegance and unparalleled emotion.
The more electrified tracks
are no less powerful. Beck seems to have found a foil, in keyboardist
Jason Rebello, to transcend his late-1980s/early-1990s work with Tony
Hymas. "Hammerhead" has all the edge Beck's rockier fans love—the gritty
wah-wah, searing wammy bar and ring modulated distortions—but with a
riff-driven, orchestrated backbone that recalls Beck's groundbreaking,
spontaneous work with producer George Martin on Blow By Blow. Like
"Hammerhead," the funkier chill-out of "Serene" is co-written by Beck
and Rebello, and combines the guitarist's matchlessly tasteful tone with
the keyboardist's more sophisticated harmonies.
The tracks featuring
May and Stone are equally compelling. Stone, in particular, brings a
contemporary kind of sultry to "I Put a Spell on You," while May turns
the James Shelton's 1950 ballad "Lilac Wine" into an equally modern
torch song, with Pete Murray's orchestrations—as throughout the
disc—strong without ever becoming saccharine.
After the more
rock-centric Performing This Week... , Emotion & Commotion presents a
very specific side to Beck that's been there all along but, with this
wonderfully chosen set of material, has never been heard in such sharp
focus. For a guitarist who came up through the British scene of the
1960s, Beck has matured into a player whose voice is assured and utterly
without parallel. The aptly titled Emotion & Commotion may not
possess any overt guitar pyrotechnics, but its deep beauty and
profoundly vocal lyricism simply could not have come from anyone but
Jeff Beck. A modern classic.
(allaboutjazz.com/jeff-beck-emotion-and-commotion-by-john-kelman)
