BLOOD, SWEAT & TEARS: CHILD IS FATHER TO THE MAN (1968)
1) Overture; 2) I Love You
More Than You'll Ever Know; 3) Morning Glory; 4) My Days Are Numbered; 5) Without
Her; 6) Just One Smile; 7) I Can't Quit Her; 8) Meagan's Gypsy Eyes; 9)
Somethin' Goin On; 10) House In The Country; 11) The Modern Adventures Of
Plato, Diogenes And Freud; 12) So Much Love / Underture.
A slightly cumbersome name for a somewhat
encumbered band — but in early 1968, the game was worth it, considering that
nobody in the rock'n'roll department had properly done it before: namely,
integrated the «rock band» format with the «big band» format, expanding the
regular lineup to no less than eight permanent members, four of them confined
almost exclusively to the brass section (although Fred Lipsius, in addition to
alto sax, is also credited for piano). For all we know, this here is indeed the
birth of «jazz-rock», a gleefully incestuous combination in which «rock», the
child, turns on «jazz», the mother, and takes his Oedipus complex out on her.
No wonder the pagan gods got angry, and
although they could not stop the jazz-rock virus from spreading, they did
ensure that, for all their prolific career, Blood, Sweat & Tears would only
have one proper masterpiece of the
genre — this album. The formal reason is obvious: the band was essentially
conceived and formed by Al Kooper, «the master of creative thinking» in
roots-oriented American pop music, fresh out of The Blues Project — but no
sooner had they released their first record that the unlucky guy was booted out
of his own band, due to «creative disagreements»: much like Eric Clapton and
Jeff Beck on the other side of the ocean, Al must have simply been incompatible
with normal teamwork, and eventually had to go solo.
The good news is that Child Is Father To The Man, a groundbreaking and, one could say,
visionary collection of new compositions and old songs rethought in a
radically new manner, did happen. Like many similar artefacts of the time, it
is quite a pretentious affair — the name of the band, the name of the album,
the sleeve photo with all the band members holding cardboard replicas of
themselves, the presence of an overture and an «underture», the understandably
loud, sprawling sound... but its intentions are also honestly idealistic — this
is not complexity for complexity's sake, this is complexity for the sake of
building a ladder to the sky — and, most importantly, it simply got a bunch of
great songs on it.
I must
say, though, that this is one of those cases where the presence of a small
handful of major personal favorites sort of obscures the rest, and dims the
whole picture. Namely, I am talking about the three principal Kooper originals:
ʽMore Than You'll Ever Knowʼ, ʽMy Days Are Numberedʼ, and ʽI Can't Quit Herʼ,
which not only happens to be the best triad he ever wrote — there is no doubt
in my mind about that — but should also rank as high as anything contributed to the world by a major songwriter in 1968.
The man's career in The Blues Project gave only vague hints at the soulful
depths he would eventually uncover, and how was that made possible? In the
least predictable manner — by surrounding himself with trumpets, trombones, and
saxophones that could be organized into a genuine power machine.
Actually, ʽI Love You More Than You'll Ever
Knowʼ is the one song on here that would have been just as poignant without the brass backing — first and
foremost, it is the greatest one-man show in Al's entire career. Recording a
song that formally matches the required criteria for «soulful desperation» is
not difficult, and has been done millions of times; making it fully credible and epically breathtaking is a feat
manageable only with a fortuitous combination of talent and luck. Although,
technically, the song is molded in the well-known «blues-de-luxe» idiom, and
you can very well see its roots in the output of B. B. King and Ray Charles,
Kooper's vocal composing is all his own — the gradual build-up, rising to
near-hysterical heights on "is that any way for a man to carry
on?..", then suddenly turning from rage to sobbing tenderness on one of
the awesomest "i-love-you-baby" of all times, then bringing it all
the way up with the first "more than you'll ever know", then gently
lowering it back down with the second one. «Heart-wrenching beauty» — check,
and I would personally take that vocal part over literally anything Robert Plant has ever committed to tape, much as he liked
to dabble in the same sort of aesthetics.
That said, the individual beauty of ʽI Love You
More Than You'll Ever Knowʼ does not quite
tie in with the ideology of Blood, Sweat & Tears: its chief reliance is on
Kooper's voice and the concordingly weepy lead guitar parts from Steve Katz
(who, by the way, also rises to the occasion and comes up with lines far more
impressive than anything previously tried in The Blues Project). That the
album, after the string snippets of the overture have died down, is actually
launched with this particular tune, might even be a bit of a surprise for the
uninitiated, as the brass section truly comes in only on the bridge, and is not
at all essential to the tune. But Child
Is Father To The Man is actually quite big on surprises — as befits any
classic work of art.
The brass section does get essential on ʽMy
Days Are Numberedʼ, a faster, tenser, and even more desperate sequel to ʽMore
Than...ʼ — the opening brass melody gives you contemplative melancholy
resolving into decisive musical seppuku in a matter of just a few bars, and
although the fast rock-based verses and the slow baroque-styled choruses are a
little too crudely sewn together, the contrast still works towards making the
experience even more unforgettable. Finally, the «Love Junkie Trilogy», as the
whole thing could be suitably called, ends with ʽI Can't Quit Herʼ, more
piano-based and a little less gloomy than its two suicidal companions, but
still picturing the passion as a hopeless addiction, driving the protagonist
crazy and, perhaps, more than a little psychopathic. Here, the piano is soon
joined by strings and brass in a fairly democratic ensemble, but again,
everything is dominated by the vocals and the inner demons — belying the image
of «jazz-rock» as something that has to be bombastic and anthemic, ʽI Can't
Quit Herʼ is really as personal and intimate as it gets.
And this is also why everything else on the
album, as thoroughly thought out and implemented as it could be, inevitably
pales next to the «Love Junkie Trilogy». Steve Katz, Kooper's old pal from the
Blues Project days, in stark contrast to Al, still seems to be living in those
days — his psycho-folk ballad ʽMeagan's Gypsy Eyesʼ is pretty and courteous,
but hardly endowed with much staying power. However, Kooper himself is hardly
free of the old «training days» legacy, either, contributing the eight-minute
mammoth blues jam ʽSomethin' Going Onʼ that is quite pedestrian in the old
Blues Project way: at least Katz's «post-Hendrix» guitar tone and the thick
brass backing give it more substance, but hardly enough to compete with the new
blues-rock language of Jeff Beck or the upcoming Led Zeppelin.
The jazzified covers of Tim Buckley, Harry
Nilsson, Randy Newman, and Carole King are all perfectly listenable,
intelligently reworked, and pleasantly soulful — certainly not «filler» in any
sense of the word — and, in between the four of them, show quite exhaustively
how this new musical formula can be applied to any sort of material, though it
is interesting that the band prefers to concentrate on «singer-songwriter»
stuff rather than try, for instance, to put their touch on any of the pop hits
of the day. Kooper's intentions seem clear enough: build his art at the
intersection of the confessional style, typical of loners and recluses, and
the loud «arena» style — show how, when the deeply personal gets expressed
through the openly public, the end results may, surprisingly, turn out to
become even more deeply personal.
This is the greatest paradox of Child,
and the one reason why the band
became such a different artistic entity after Kooper's departure: the form was
retained, the substance was lost.
Anyway, the bottomline is: even if, for some
reason, you are afraid of «jazz-rock» — for instance, associate it with Chicago
ballads, or with instrumental fusion conundrums for those who value mathematics
over music, do not make the mistake of ignoring this record, which sounds
nothing like either of the two formulae. In fact, it pretty much sounds like
nothing else out there: «Al Kooper with horns, strings, and heartbreak» finds
no reasonable equivalent in my experience, and gets an assured thumbs up
for that reason alone, not to mention all the others.
Check "Child Is Father To The Man" (CD) on Amazon
Check "Child Is Father To The Man" (MP3) on Amazon
Unfortunately it didn't take long for this entire genre (and this band) to go to hell.
ReplyDeleteThat Kooper trilogy is amazing, though. Kooper's "I Stand Alone" and "You Never Know Who Your Friends Are" are better than anything the reconstituted Blood, Sweat, and Tears would do, in my opinion. Kooper's voice, like Lennon's, is astonishingly resonant emotionally.
ReplyDeleteThat second album is quite good as well, though. Let's face it, this sort of soulful-cum-jazzy approach was always going to err on the side of commerciality. Miles Davis they weren't (and neither were Chicago or any of the other groups in this short lived genre).
ReplyDeleteThe post is labelled as either "Blood" or "Sweat & Tears". I guess blogger took the comma too literally.
ReplyDelete