VARIOUS “Jazz Spectrum Volume 2” **
cd/2lp - 2000 - Barely Breaking Even (BBE025) 72’05”
Opening with horrible “we’re waiting for the halftime results” schmalz and
occasionally reverting to similar “interlude” pap (the Joanna Grauer track
is utter yikes, and - let’s face it - the Freddie Robinson track is just a
fingerwarming ditty), this very patchy compilation doès have its moments,
though. Why, the track by Senor Soul or Stormy Jazzmin could just as well be
labelled funky funk! And the Irakere track turns out to be a brilliantly fab
slab of afrocuban funk - sounding as if Fela were backed by a batucada
band... But jazz? Wa-a-all yess, this album does bring dancefloor jazz and
brasileiras, but alas more often than not shmoochy ones - the kind that make
you shudder to think about the interior of the compiler’s bedsit (“might it
be identical to the one in which that Asian guy was throwing fireworks, at
the end of ‘Boogie Nights’ ?”) One could apply the label “jazz” to a lot of
music, I guess, but this volume isn’t at all about cool cats trying to do a
boogaloo (only Bobby Cooke succeeds here, and Julius Jones comes close, but
the Harold McNair track doesn’t quite fulfill the promise of its “Hipster”
title) - let alone jazzmen who set out to challenge Charles Mingus, Eric
Dolphy or Lennie Tristano, of course... And neither did we ask for that. But
let’s not call something "the real deal" if half of the album is muzak (e.g.
Julie Kelly, Byron Morris) for trade mart professionals or salad bar
seekers, shall we? This could have been a great mini-album, but the presence
of too much repulsive fodder leaves quite a foul taste indeed.
*
The thing with compilations is: some of them open up new worlds, and others
don’t. Those “Rubble” sixties psychedelia (they’re being reprinted on vinyl
now!), those “Mojo Club Dancefloor Jazz” or those “n00% Dynamite” best of
Jamaica compilations, for instance, generally leave (or have left) me with a
sense of “wow, now there’s a few artists to get to know a little better”.
Obscurities compilations such as the “Sound of funk” or the BBE
compilations, however, do not bring about such a feeling of curiosity or
even lust, as it is at all times very clear that they’re just a bunch of
one-off tracks brought together by maniacs for maniacs, and not as much by
lovers for lovers... (I’ll admit, though, that the more recent Mojo Club
volumes were disappointing, and that their packaging is ugly, whereas the
BBE sleeves, at least, are very cool.)
*
And so, BBE are now releasing a no. 2 volume in every “Spectrum”, even
though they may not always have been ready for it... For “Funk Spectrum 2”
(see our 00.02 issue for an immediate review) isn’t gonna go down in history
as a killer compilation either, I fear. Still, expect “Latin Spectrum 2” and
“Disco Spectrum 2” soon... (Incidentally, the vinyl version of this one
features on extra track, June Gardner’s “Mustard greens”.)
Snaporaz
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