Below, today's set of reviews and citations of audiovisual works and related matter, with the posts at the links...as always, thanks to all the contributors and to all you readers for your participation. As usual, there are likely to be additions to this list over the course of the day, and if I've missed your, or someone else's, post, please let me know in comments...thanks again...
Takes the interlocutors two minutes of bibble to get to the Desmond interview. Recorded not long before his death in 1977.
1965 album: Glad to Be Unhappy
Desmond, alto sax; Jim Hall, guitar; Gene Wright, bass (long-term Toshiko Akiyoshi and, later, Frank Sinatra bassist Gene Cherico subs on "Poor Butterfly"); Connie Kay, drums. One of several Desmond/Hall albums, and the DBQ bassist and MJQ percussionist making for an excellent rhythm section.
Tracks:1 Glad To Be Unhappy 00:002 Poor Butterfly 05:463 Stranger In Town 13:064 A Taste Of Honey 19:345 Any Other Time 24:046 Hi-Lili, Hi-Lo 29:307 Angel Eyes 34:148 By The River Sainte Marie 40:379 All Across The City 46:5410 All Through The Night 51:28Credits:Alto Saxophone – Paul DesmondDrum – Connie KayGuitar – Jim HallBass – Eugene Wright (tracks: Except # 2), Gene Cherico (tracks: Only on # 2)
Recorded in RCA Victor's Studio "A" and Webster Hall, New York City, 1963-1964
Below, the Varese Sarabande version (with six bonus tracks added: 13-18) of I Love You by the Zombies, an album Decca put together solely for their Japanese and Dutch divisions, made up (as were such similar US-market compilations as the Beatles' Yesterday and Today or Hey Jude or the Rolling Stones' December's Children (And Everybody's)) out of a fairly random mixture of singles (A and B sides) and other recordingsthat hadn'tbeen actually earmarked for inclusion in an album (at least, in many cases, in the US market, where corporate greed meant fewer songs per LP than in the less affluent Britain of the '60s).
Why Decca/Parrot, which had already found greater success with the Zombies in the US (though they did OK enough in the UK and much of the rest of the world), didn't simply follow that example and release this second LP (unless we count their contribution to the soundtrack album for the suspense film Bunny Lake is Missing, which is not a Zombies film quite the way Help! or Catch Us if You Can or Hold On! are films about/featuring the bands in and scoring them, but more along the lines of the Yardbirds' contribution to Blow Up, and missing the all but required exclamation point) in the States as well is unclear...perhaps the Japanese and Dutch releases were meant to be a sort of test-marketing. But after the rather rushed-out first album, Begin Here (1965), chopped and channeled and shortened for US release as The Zombies, the band had been consistently exploring means to not only Make Hits but to play around with song forms, and find different ways to incorporate their jazz, R&B, choral music and other influences within a rock context...much in the manner of such exact contemporaries the Byrds (particularly by the latter's third album, where the jazz influences outweigh the folk-music legacy, and as they also moved on to co-founding country rock), and their fellow Britons in the Yardbirds and the Animals to a great extent; similar music from Fairport Convention and Soft Machine, among others, would soon follow. Release Date 1966
English rock band founded in 1962 in St Albans, Herts, England.
Rod Argent: Keyboards, Vocals
Paul Atkinson: Guitars
Chris White: Bass, Vocals
Colin Blunstone: Lead Vocals
Hugh Grundy: Drums
01 - The Way I Feel Inside (Rod Argent)
02 - How We Were Before (Colin Blunstone) 01:48
03 - Is This The Dream (Rod Argent) 03:52
04 - Whenever You're Ready (Rod Argent) 06:33
05 - Woman (Rod Argent) 09:14
06 - You Make Me Feel Good (Chris White) 11:38
07 - Gotta Get A Hold Of Myself (Angela Riela, Clint Ballard Jr) 14:14
08 - Indication (Rod Argent) 16:42
09 - Don't Go Away (Chris White) 19:40
10 - I Love You (Chris White) 22:13
11 - Leave Me Be (Chris White) 25:32
12 - She's Not There (Rod Argent) 27:40
After this, in 1967, the Zombies and Decca disaffiliated, and the band moved to CBS to see if their fortunes might improve; Columbia's UK division wasn't going to extend them much money, so they recorded even the more complex compositions on their third (or fourth) LP as inexpensively as they could (the band was never as wrapped up in extensive studio/mixing technique as the Beach Boys or the Beatles or the Who, preferring most of their more complex work to still be performed in concert without too much frippery...though, of course, they didn't get much opportunity to play around thus, despite achieving interesting Spectorish walls of sound in some of their recordings, such as "She's Coming Home"). Odessey and Oracle, cute reference to odes implanted in the customized spelling and all, did little business, and the mooted next/last album, to be titled R.I.P. (the first time they would make even a passing reference to their own band name, which apparently meant about as little to them as "the Kinks" did to that band's members), didn't actually come together, as the members went their different ways, keyboardist/composer Rod Argent having already put together his new band Argent, lead singer and infrequent composer Colin Blunstone not quite yet ready to launch his solo career but it would soon follow, bassist/composer Chris White all but retiring from performance but writing songs for both and others. It took two years for "Time of the Season," the last song on O&O, to build to an international hit, and the Zombies declined to reform. which led to multiple fake Zombie bands touring (George Romero could sympathize), and, of course, obligated Argent the band and Blunstone to add it to their concerts.
But while there is excellent material on all the Zombies albums (including Bunny Lake, and surprisingly "She's Not There," though played briefly in the film, is on all cited albums so far except the soundtrack and O&O), this selection is perhaps just a notch better than the other long-players the band saw released during their first career together, featuring such brilliant material as their first hit (and pointedly leaving off their second, "Tell Her No," not a song the band wanted to release as a single and one of the weaker songs in their discography) as well as "Whenever You're Ready" and several others which come close to their mark (I'll admit that the "extra" tracks Varese Sarabande added for this 2004 release make it even sexier, for those who wouldn't want the not quite exhaustive but very inclusive box set Zombie Heaven--"Remember You" and "Just Out of Reach" are also among their very best records, and their cover of "Going Out of My Head" another highlight). "Woman" by me is a near-clunker, but a charmingly energetic one, and compares favorably with the not-quite first-rate covers of the likes of "Road Runner" on Begin Here or the Weillesque but not completely successful attempt at getting across the horrors of war on O&O, "Butcher's Tale (Western Front 1914)"--also, an example of the very young band starting by their last work together in the '60s starting to move lyrically beyond songs of new, lost and spurned love; their early psychedelia recordings, such as "Beechwood Park" and "Smokey Day," would follow, and would illustrate how little even King Crimson or Pink Floyd, much less the Moody Blues (or, sadly, Argent the band), would manage to better what the Zombies were beginning to explore--and still within the confines of the three-minute or shorter song.
Though as callow as their lyrics could be at times (and as witty at other times, and sometimes even simultaneously--something also notable in their similarly young contemporary Gene Clark, the first great songwriter in the Byrds, whose swan song with that band was "Eight Miles High"), few bands have ever combined the beauty and propulsiveness of most of the Zombies' best work (Blunstone's sometimes almost bleating in the early recordings, in an attempt to sound bluesily soulful, usually manages to resolve to something worthwhile, and happily he gave that up rather quickly; another rare feature of early recordings, Argent's excellent harmonica playing, is sadly absent from the later recordings). Even this album is only a limited taste of what they were able to achieve from 1964-67, and Zombie Heaven gives one the meat of all the albums, BBC radio tracks, and some interview and other matter (including the very funny full recording of the reworking of Blunstone's "Just Out of Reach" to promote the film Bunny Lake, "Come on Time"--the web-posted versions of that song are sadly truncated and apparently lifted from a very ragged recording source, indeed). Listening to Argent's often Brubeckianly block-chorded solos play off Hugh Grundy's precise and melodic drumming, and the occasional flashes of virtuosity from good guitarist Paul Atkinson and even better bassist White, mixed with the often tricky vocal arrangements (all but Grundy put their choir practice chops to excellent use), is a very good time indeed, not at all soulless. "Whenever You're Ready"
Incomplete Discography: The Zombies, 1961-1967 version: (Largely courtesy Wikipedia and Discogs)
Top, Paul Atkinson, Rod Argent. Below, Hugh Grundy Chris White, Colin Blunstone
