 Joe
Beck: Beck
Beck
is back! A perfectionist, gifted with a sharp sense of self-criticism,
Joe Beck (born on July 29, 1945, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvannia) was
making good music (and a lot of money) when he disappeared from the NY
music scene in 1971 to become a dairy farmer in Vermont. After his
professional debut with Paul Winter’s group in 1964, he had played
with such masters as Gary McFarland, Charles Lloyd, Chico Hamilton,
and Gil Evans, on whose orchestra he was a member from 1967 to 1971.
(One of his best albums with Evans, Where Flamingos Fly, only
came out ten years later on the Artists House label).
Not
to mention that Joe Beck had been the first guitarist to record with
Miles Davis, on a controversial December 1967 session later released,
in 1979, on the Circle in The Round album. “For years I
dreamed to play with Miles, one of my heroes. But, when I had the
chance, I wasn’t prepared yet, and I played very badly on that
session,” Beck comments. “By the end of 1971, I was feeling so
stressed that I gave up everything and decided to take a long break of
music. I wasn’t satisfied with my life nor with my career.”
After
almost three years milking cows (“during that period as a farmer, my
only musical work was to write the soundtrack for a porno movie, a
spiced version of Grimm’s Fairy Tales, which I did just for fun”,
he laughs), Beck returned with renewed energy to Manhattan’s studio
scene. Soon he was recording on Dom Um Romao’s debut album for Muse,
as well as touring with Joe Farrell.
At
that time, Farrell was signed to CTI and, through him, Joe Beck
re-encountered Creed Taylor. Beck’s first session as a sideman for
CTI, on October 29, 1968, had been for J.J. Johnson & Kai
Winding’s Betwixt & Between album, followed by a
recording for Paul Desmond’s Summertime album on November 20,
1968, playing acoustic guitar on the now cult samba version of Louis
Armstrong’s Struttin’ With Some Barbecue.
After
being an integral part, in October 1973, of the sessions which yielded
Joe Farrell’s Penny Arcade album (for which he also
contributed as composer of its title track), Beck was invited to take
part on Idris Muhammad’s Power of Soul (March 1974), as well
as on two other albums by Farrell’s group: Upon This Rock
(March 1974) and Canned Funk (Nov-Dec 1974). Beck’s ferocious
guitar style impressed Creed Taylor so much that the producer invited
him to join the CTI/Kudu family. “Creed offered me the chance to do
my own album, which represented my artistical redemption”, states
the guitarist.
On
March 10 & 11, 1975, at Van Gelder’s Studio in New Jersey, Joe
Beck and his buddies (Don Grolnick, Will Lee, Chris Parker, Steve Khan
and David Sanborn, a superteam of second-generation fusion players)
recorded all the basic tracks for the self-titled Beck album.
On March 17, Beck, Khan and Grolnick, plus percussionist Ray Mantilla,
returned to do some overdubs. At last, on June 25, Don Sebesky added
unobstrusive string arrangements to three tracks: Star Fire, Cactus
and Red Eye.
The
opening track, Star Fire, had been previously recorded (under the
title The Saddest Thing) on Idris Muhammad’s Power of Soul
album. Beck and Sanborn play the melody in unison, in a dense
atmosphere that is not sweetened by Sebesky’s string arrangement.
Don
Grolnick shines as a composer on Cactus (adding an organ during Joe
Beck’s fiery guitar solo), and as a soloist on Texas Ann, on which
Grolnick performs a masterful improvisation on the Fender Rhodes, a
lesson in dynamics and architectonic logical. By the way, he uses
electric piano on all tracks, except on Brothers And Others (comping
on the acoustic piano in a way only he and another late funk master,
Richard Tee, knew how to do).
Percussionist
Ray Mantilla adds congas and cowbell to Red Eye, an incandescent
bluesy tune written by Beck, whose guitar attack seems to bite the
listener’s ears. However, Sanborn steals the show with a fantastic
performance, phrasing beautifully during his astonishing solo.
Cafe
Black Rose, a Gene Dinwiddie song for which Lightinin’ Rod later
added lyrics on the Hustler’s Convention album, is a
country-tinged performance. Steve Kahn, a guitarist’s guitarist, son
of the legendary composer Sammy Cahn, sounds like if he was playing a
pedal steel guitar. It is worth to remember that Gene Dinwiddie is the
Christian name of Jalal Mansur Nuriddin, who formed the legendary The
Last Poets group in 1969, after releasing from prison. A USA
paratrooper, who opted to go to jail instead of fighting in the
Vietnam War, Gene converted to Islam while in prison, adopting a new
name.
Undoubtedly
the album highlight, Brothers and Others begins with a piano intro
played by Don Grolnick on his unmistakable style. There are bright
solos by both Beck and Sanborn, propelled by a rhythm section that is
pure dynamite. It is the perfect ending for an album full of
excitement, musical intensity and vital energy.
The
psychedelic cover art was done, at Joe Beck’s request, by Abdul Mati
Klarwein, who created the paintings for several Miles Davis’ albums
of the jazz-rock era, such as the seminal Bitches Brew and its
follow-up Live Evil. However, when reissuing the Beck
album in 1979, on the CTI 8000 series, Creed Taylor opted for a new
cover provided by photographer Mitchell Funk, and retitled the album Beck
& Sanborn for obvious commercial purposes, to take advantage
of David Sanborn’s huge fame. This second
cover and false title were also used on the USA CD reissue by CBS
in 1987.
Although
he never recorded again for Creed Taylor as a leader, Joe Beck did
many other albums as a sideman for both the CTI and Kudu labels: The
Chicago Theme (Hubert Laws), The Rape of El Morro (Don
Sebesky) and House of the Rising Sun (Idris Muhammad), all of
them recorded in 1975. That same year, he became the main responsible
for making What A Diff’rence A Day Makes, the best-selling
album ever in Esther Phillips’ career, thanks to Beck’s
disco-arrangement of the title track, which became a big dancefloor
hit all over the world during the summer of 1975. A second
Phillips/Beck collaboration, For All We Know, was quickly
produced in October of that same year. But it’s another story that
also deserves to be told in details. For now, let’s cheers
because... Beck is back!
Arnaldo
DeSouteiro
May 24, 2001
Mr.
DeSouteiro is Brazil’s top jazz producer and CTI historian
|
