Customer Reviews

Colors

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Ken Nordine's free-form associations on the topic of colors is delivered in a soothing, smoky 50's jazz-lounge voice and set to a busy jazz accompanyment. This is a real treasure for anyone who is interested in spoken word, psychadelia, beat poetry, advertising copywriting, radio advertising, and even graphic design. This guy is the mad master of visual metaphor. Buy it !!

Ken Nordine was commisioned by a paint company to write several commercials about colors. He recorded the spoken word ads backed by free form jazz. The commercials got so much acclaim, that he decided to record an album where he redid the spots (without mentioning the name of the paint company this time), adding many more colors. All the pieces are around a minute and a half long. Some of the tracks can be taken as social commentary, but most of them are just Nordine having fun saying whatever a particular color makes him think of. The CD adds ten bonus tracks to the original album, for a total of 34 (Nordine says he recorded 44 in all). This is a fun album, if you like music that is a little "out there".

Ken is a true original, blending the lost arts of true storytelling with wit, pathos and sheer idiotic charm. He is above all others, a master wordsmith and poet.

I saw this artist perform live in London at Laurie Anderson's 'Meltdown festival 1997'. If you EVER get the chance to see some of this work performed live, with Ken backed by his orchestra or Jazz artists, then do so, It will be like nothing you expect. OK - i'll try... Imagine William S Boroughs crossed with Ivor Cutler by way of.... er..... Hong Kong Phooey? ... and you 're still nowhere near it....

The Colurs album should be sampled randomly and in bite sized amounts.... be patient and the silliness will slowly infect your soul... When you are ready, check out Word Jazz Vol 1 for a taste of the bigger Nordeine picture..

Finally, if Volume two ever surfaces, can someone send me a copy?

Pick a colour, any colour and smile..

My personal choices are , Beige, Puce, Russet, maroon and Orange....

This album truly is weird as heck, but man, I love it anyway.

"Colors" is a strange little jewel of a relic from the mid-1960s, featuring the deep-voiced Ken Nordine reading groovy poetry over jazzy instrumentals. Each, um...song (if you can call them that?) is about half a minute long and tells a little story about every color imaginable, from Black and White to Azure, Beige, and Muddy. Many of the colors are personified: Olive and Russet are trendy hipsters, Puce suffers from low self-esteem, Crimson is a bit of a psychopath. Other songs, such as "Flesh" and "Gold" are witty social commentary.

One of my favorite things about "Colors" is that the tracks can be used to add something pleasantly surreal and unexpected to mix CDs and iPod playlists.

But this is definitely an album to own, not just download from the Internet--because to truly appreciate the "Colors" experience, you've also got to have the album art, which features a bizarre gameboard and plenty of pop-art illustrations.

This is Ken Nordine we're talking about. What's not to love? I do like his longer form pieces better (hence the four stars not five) but this one is full of short and snappy stuff. Okay, four and a half stars.

I was first introduced to this recording in the 60's when Ken sent me a tape preview of this fascinating album. Over the years I lost the tape and missed his magnificent voice describing the very essence of each color so vividly you could "see" them dance inside your mind! Now I can finally relive the experience with this new album!!

Cullen Newman

The cover promises 'a sensuous listening experience', and the promise is kept. Not only do you see the color in question before you, you also feel its texture and personality, it's that vivid! Brace yourself for an extraordinary listening experience...

I have only recently been introduced to Ken Nordine and since them moment i listened to "Colors" I've been preaching its glories to all around. There is no satisfactory explanation for Nordine's exploration of psychadelic existential beat. Its simply brilliant.

Life has its twists and turns; its paths, and music appreciation has
them too. For example, I love Robyn Hitchcock, and own all of his
albums. His most current, "A Star for Bram" (incidentally,
vastly superior to "Jewels for Sophia") contains a song
about Nick Drake. Good song. This prompted me to listen to Nick
Drake, who sounds like a prototype for those Scots Belle and
Sebastian. I put on "If you're Feeling Sinster," and when
it was over, I somehow had developed a wacky desire to listen to
Elvis. Costello, that is, and so I put on "Spike." The drum
intro on "Veronica" is the same as the intro to "James
K. Polk" by They Might Be Giants, so I listened to the album
"Factory Showroom." Having listened to two mediocre albums
by some excellent artists, I decided to continue the tradition and put
on "Respect" by Robyn Hitchcock. You see? Robyn Hitchcock
prompted me to listen to Nick Drake, from Drake to Belle and
Sebastian, to Elvis. Costello, that is, and then to TMBG and finally
back to Robyn again. I ended up worse off than when I started, but it
was a fun ride. I followed a logical path.

This is the
point--there is absolutely no logical path that leads to
"Colors." I mean, it's just out there... Fill in the
blank--"If you like ______, then you'll positively aDORE Ken
Nordine!" You can't! You just can't do it! I put the album in
the Jazz portion of my collection, but to briefly personify, I don't
know if good old Ken is getting on that well with Miles and Mingus. I
don't think Coltraine and Parker let him sit in very often. Even Dave
Brubeck is defensively indifferent... Maybe they're just jealous.

They could learn a lession by listening to the album. Essentially a
whimsical morality play in which one-dimensional Vices and Virtues
bang each other over the head, "Colors" would be a great
album to play for an emotionally developing child. Painting (if I
may) a resplendent and busily bustling picture of such sins as
racisism, envy, vanity, and sloth, "Colors" can at times be
a little heavy-handed as it oversimplifys. But within the social
commentary lies a celebration of color, of life; a wacky celebration
of wackiness.

Like this review, "Colors" sometimes
over-reaches. There is a consistency in theme (obviously--all the
songs are about colors), but the approach varies from song to song.
It's kind of like Disney--you know, Mickey keeps Pluto, a dog, as his
pet. Goofy, himself a dog, must be extremely open minded to be able
to be friends with someone who has disrespectfully reduced his blood
brother to the status of lowly, doghouse dwelling pet, and how come
one is able to speak and understand English and not the other, etc...
Know what I mean? Nordine's playful "Maroon" aims to rhyme
words with "maroon," whereas "Black" and
"White" are more conceptual and many songs personify colors
and assign them character traits. These transgressions are easily
forgivable due to the merit of the album as a whole, and there are
some KILLER lines (I paraphrase the following) "Only colors not
worth seeing/Is the grey way Beige likes things being."
Dude...

I've owned this album for over a year and I STILL haven't
really gotten over what initally drew me to it. It's simple really:
"Colors" is a SPOKEN WORD album about COLORS as performed by
THAT VOICE GUY!

That's all I really needed to say. It's wacky.
It's a great album to own. The inlay contains instructions for a game
you can play by listening to the album. You can sneak it into your CD
player when company is over and wait for people to go "What the
%#!@ is this?!?!" It's obscure, it's funny, it's off-beat, it
doesn't sound like anything else, it doesn't require assembly or
batteries, the MUSIC is excellent, the concept doesn't get old, it's
well written and well performed, goes great with milk, and MATCHES
anything you wear. If you're still reading this review, you probably
own the album anyway, so do the rest of the mental work yourself...
Rock on, Ken Nordine...

I have no idea whether to give this CD one or five stars, because it is wholly based on what vantage point you approach this thing from, so in the end it gets three. Noted voiceover man Ken Nordine recorded this in the 1960s (big surprise there), and it is ostensibly a commentary on social injustices, particularly racism. (Really now, how many words actually do rhyme with "puce"?) It really is free form blank verse poetry about colors set to inoffensive smooth jazz. Some have seen this as visionary, some as excellent psychedelic commentary; I see it more as upbeat silliness.

In all honesty I find this CD amusing and fun to listen to, but mostly out of a lifelong desire to mock pretentiousness rather than any kind of admiration for the artistic accomplishment to be unveiled here. I am not saying that there isn't anything meaningful here, I am just saying that it is hidden cleverly behind an extremely campy facade. People who enjoy listening to William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy sing will adore this CD. So will die hard intellectuals who are convinced of the brilliant political satire it contains. I love it because it is fun to listen to, think about, and laugh at.

This CD is not for everyone (listen to the audio samples before buying!) but some people will find this CD irresistibly delicious for very different reasons. I think you should check it out, but be prepared for a very unique listening experience.