Album Reviews

Anyone who thinks exploitation/commercialization is a recent development wasn’t around in the aftermath of George Harrison’s discovery of Indian music and his use of a sitar on “Norwegian Wood.”

The Rolling Stones hopped on board with “Paint it Black” and The Byrds did too on “Eight Miles High.” But these utilized the sitar as a background instrument.

(Correction): According to Byrds expert John Nork (whose  superb interviews with McGuinn, Crosby and Hillman can be found elsewhere on this site) :"There is no sitar on “Eight Miles High.”  Although there are certainly both jazz (Coltrane) and raga (Shankar) elements in the instrumental solos, they are played by Roger McGuinn on a heavily compressed Rickenbacker twelve-string guitar, rather than a sitar.  No one in the Byrds could play that instrument.  Interestingly, when they held a press conference for the release of  “Eight Miles High,”  McGuinn was photographed holding a sitar.  That was purely for instructional purposes.  No sitar was actually employed on the song.  If you listen closely to the instrumental solos, you can clearly hear the octave strings of the Rickenbacker 12."

In 1966, Richard Bock’s World Pacific Records released an album by The Folkswingers featuring Harihar Rao on sitar called “Raga Rock,” which featured the exotic instrument as the lead.

The Folkswingers was a group in name only, consisting of amalgams of L.A.’s greatest studio cats including drummer Hal Blaine, the late Larry Knechtel (played the piano on “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” etc.) guitarists Tommy Tedesco, Howard Roberts, Dennis Budimir and Herb Ellis, and bassists Lyle Ritz and Bill Pittman.

The sitarist Rao was the director of the Indian Studies Group at UCLA’s Institute of Ethnomusicology and leader of the Ravi Shankar Music Circle. No novice he!

All had come together to exploit the shit out of Indian musical influences on rock and more power to them. They cover the obvious bases: “Paint It Black,” “Eight Miles High,” and “Norwegian Wood.” But you haven’t lived until you’ve heard “Along Comes Mary” “Time Won’t Let Me” “Hey Joe,” “Kicks” and the others “on the raga”—including The Turtles’ “Grim Reaper of Love”!

George Tipton, whose other credits include Jan and Dean and Chet Baker’s Mariachi album, provided the suitably tacky arrangements. This record is more silly fun than any cheap exploitation record has any right to be, aided by absolutely mind-blowingly great sound.

No claims of “art” were made for Raga Rock, none were needed and none would have stuck.

That’s not the case with the late Gabor Szabo’s album Jazz Raga, coincidentally recorded by Rudy Van Gelder 45 years to the very day this is being written (I swear, I hadn’t noticed the date until this very second, today Thursday August 4^th 2011). A second session followed on August 14^th.

Originally issued on Impulse and produced by Bob Thiele, with liner notes by Nat Hentoff, this laminated gatefold release had the aura of jazz legitimacy and it's spoken of today by many with all due seriousness.

But, reading between the lines of Nat Hentoff’s liner notes (and, given the jazz richness issued during that time, past his ridiculous opening line “This was an album I was particularly eager to hear”— probably written as a favor to Thiele), and it’s pretty obvious that he’s about as happy to be here as he would be spending the day at a Planned Parenthood rally.

So let’s be serious, okay?

Larry Coryell was booked for these dates but didn’t show up (booking miscommunication or he stayed away? You decide!).

The Hungarian-born jazz guitarist ended up overdubbing sitar on most tracks—an instrument he could barely play, not aided by the fact that it was a poorly made instrument and he was left with but a string or two toward the end of the session.

Nonetheless, while the first session, a trio of Szabo, stand-up bassist “Johnny” Gregg and drummer Bernard “Pretty” Purdie (because of the Coryell “no show”) produced weak musical results and some live-to-two-track sound that makes it appear as if Rudy was snoozing through some of it unaware that the meters were pinned, the second  date, on which Purdie’s friend, the late electric bassist Bob Bushnell, sits in, resulted in some pretty cool tracks.

“Walking on Nails,” the opener from session two, is a ridiculous, campy affair with Szabo singing about exercising caution in life (“there are burning coals along the way, tread lightly or you’ll have to pay”).

The opening sounds “inspired” by The Blues Project’s “Steve’s Song” from their Projections album, which I believe had been recorded earlier.  Still the talented guitarist floats some nice notes over the campy mess and the sound is superb.

Next up is “Mizrab,” also from the second session, which is among the set’s most successful tracks, with a juicy tabla part played by “The Tonight Show Band” (Doc Severinson era) drummer Ed Shaughnessy. That’s followed by “Search For Nirvana,” another second session number, with Szabo adding non-lyrical “vocalizing” probably inspired by his friend the late jazz arranger Gary McFarland.

Krishna” descends to “Beach Blanket Bingo” soundtrack “twist” level, while the Gary McFarland composition “Raga Doll” is a nicely turned bossa nova that presages the Santana sound by a few years.  The side ends with “Comin’ Back” another bit of “Beach Blanket Bingo” twist filler.

Side two opens with a silly, corny version of “Paint It Black,” that sounds lifted from The Folkswingers’ album, recorded around the same time. I tried to get exact recording session dates for the World Pacific album but couldn’t.

Regardless of which came first, the inclusion of this cover blows artistic credibility out of the water in my opinion, Hentoff’s liner notes to the contrary. One can only imagine what went through Bernard Purdie’s mind while playing this (though he’s quoted as saying of the album “I loved it”).

“Sophisticated Wheels” from the first session is a straight -ahead showcase for Szabo’s “deep-toned, down-home Hungarian blues” according to Hentoff. The overdubbed sitar is really superfluous but Purdie’s beat keeping is awesome.

“Ravi” (about guess who) is another one note rifer that would in other circumstances be a long bridge in a real tune sort of like the mid section of “the long version” of “Light My Fire.”

The album peters out with Duke Ellington’s “Caravan,” a sonic and musical mess that sounds like it started as a casually recorded jam and Gershwin’s “Summertime” that sounds somewhat better organized and recorded.

Spellbinder, Szabo’s previous Impluse effort, recorded May of 1966 by Rudy Van Gelder is a more straightforward effort that shows off Szabo’s talents to much greater effect. It has drummer Chico Hamilton, bassist Ron Carter and latin percussion from Willie Bobo and Victor Pantoja.

It’s mostly an album of covers of standards like “Witchcraft,” “My Foolish Heart,” and “Autumn Leaves,” but it also includes Sonny and Cher’s “Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down).” The highlight is Szabo’s “Gypsy Queen” that really sounds like something Santana would later formulate. Sundazed issued it on their Euphoria! Label (ELP 217).

As for this one from Light in the Attic records, the laminated gatefold packaging on heavy stock is first rate, but there’s no information about who cut lacquers and what the source was for the cut, though we know the original master was used initially.

Whatever the source, the sound quality is mostly superb, except when Rudy wasn’t on the case, which, fortunately is only for a track or two. Otherwise, it’s transparent big, and quite psychedelic. 

The 180g pressing was dirty out of the sleeve, but once vacuum cleaned was flawless and quiet, proving that United can do it if they try (I’m assuming United).

Light in the Attic includes a full sized, four page informative insert containing “The Story Behind Jazz Raga” originally produced for the CD version. It includes a Szabo bio, a backgrounder on the album quotes from Purdie, Gregg, Szabo (from a 1967 issue of Jazz magazine—Szabo died in 1982) and Santana drummer Michael Shrieve who says he and Carlos Santana used to check out Szabo’s shows back in the early ‘70s at San Francisco’s El Matador.

Shrieve explains that Santana used a lick from “Gypsy Queen” in its version of Fleetwood Mac’s “Black Magic Woman.” Now it all adds up, right?

So what about this album? Beck (Hansen, not Jeff) says Jazz Raga was an inspiration for his 1996 album Odelay. He described Szabo thusly: “…a freaky jazz-guitar guy from the ‘60s. Kind of corny psychedelic. Like there’s one album called Jazz Raga ….He didn’t know how to play sitar. The song starts out, doo-doo-doo-diddle kind of jazzy-guitar stuff, but then all of a sudden the sitar goes wah wah! It just sounds so fucked-up and good.”

That about sums it up. Your call!