Customer Reviews

Reflections

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Americans are living the consequences of what Mr. Scott-Heron warned of more than twenty years ago.

"Mandate, my ass"

"What has happened is that, in the last twenty years America has changed from a producer to a consumer"

"We used to be a producer ... and now we are consumers, finding it difficult to understand"

"Natural resources and minerals will change your world"

Unfortunately, most available versions of this song cut the extended outro, the survival mantra :

"this ain't really your life; it ain't nothing' but a movie"

I'm not really a fan of Jazz and I'm not really sure why GSH appears in the Jazz sections of most record stores but after initially discovering him through the excellent (although not quite as good) "The Revolution will not be televised" a friend pointed me in the direction of "Reflections". The album is funky, angry and clever. Anybody who can do a better version of "Inner City Blues" than Marvin Gaye's original needs to be taken seriously and this song together with the closer "B-movie" are the hilights of a great album.

How can a man make an album that is so politically savvy and sharp but still very funky and sexy? Buy it.

i first found this LP for a pound in a junk bin. i'd heard of Heron and figured that a pound was a safe bet. what i got was a hundred times the value of my money. and definitely worth the much higher price i now have to pay!

no other record of his connected with me as fully as this LP did, it is still a superb record and the CD version has done nothing to suck out any of the vinyl quality (thank God!). Grandma's Hands is one of the most evocative love songs i have ever heard and i still treasure it deeply.

my only disappointment was the song Morning Thoughts, which now just seems turgid and dull. Other than that, the songs are exceptional, the cover versions - I favor this version of Inner City Blues over any other (sorry, Mr Gaye) - are spot on. All in all, worth every cent that it's cost me to date.

This CD is another one of those gems from Gil Scott. Each song has it's on story that can be related to most people. Being fom Louisiana, I remembered that day when Mark Essex shot uo downtown New Orleans. It was indeed an Inter City Blues" This CD is a must for any Gil Scott fan.

Crisp horn arrangements, Robert Gordon's wicked DC style slap bass... and two of Gil Scott Heron's all time greatest staples GUN and RE-RON on this... (IS THAT JAZZ smokes as well.) - - Though one of his "later" albums, this captures the Gil Scott Heron we know and remember (last time I saw him he didn't even have a drummer and seemed even less lucid that usual... hopefully things have changed for the better by now... but who knows... He was always so drunk he'd be falling off the bench to his Rhodes when I'd go see him at the CHESTNUT CABARET in Philly, but until 10 years ago was backed atleast by a wicked band to compensate !) - - This is a trip back to the good old days... (Who ever thought anyone would call the Reagan 80's good ?)

Okay okay. Now upon the first two listens to this album (and as I write this I completed the second) my reaction to this album was one of a great big "HUH?". THIS IS 1981!!!! Even with other political/protest oriented artists,especially writing within the context of the funk/jazz/black power ideom their was a significant sense of musical futurism during the first few years of the 80's. On this album Gil Scott chose to embrace NONE of that. While I wouldn't refer to this album as primative by any means it tends to take the sound of the previous record Real Eyes a step further by putting nearly all electronics by the wayside in the music. That forces the music to focus in on what,in this case amounts up to basically a live band variation of the "naked funk" style of this era. The result is the sound of this music is somewhat similar to early 70's James Brown,only with better recording quality and just a tad more slickness. And on both the musical AND political front it certainly doesn't pull any punches either.

All and all the musical palette on this album is extremely varied. Okay the reggae song "Storm Music" would easily be a clishe with any other artist in this era. But it holds complete ethnic identification with Gil Scott here,who has Jamaican/American lineage himself. What surprised me were the covers of "Grandma's Hands" and "Inner City Blues". Now Marvin Gaye and Bill Withers were the closest in more popular music to Gil's vision to be said. Still he's always been so known as a writer that the idea of him interpreting others songs may seem a little odd. But he takes a jazz musicians outlook on it;improvizing a great and timely "rap on the Marvin cover for example. "Is That Jazz?",with it's swinging rhythm actually looks into that very issue-the idea of jazz as a cultural force in an era where it seemed to be split into dozens of special interest groups. "Morning Thoughts" is a slower tune and one of Gil's rare romantic musings on the era-in this case taking a very adult oriented male end of that equasion. The funky "Gun" is the story of the beginning of the 80's "gangsta" era where everyone seemed mroe concerned about armorment than personel negociation.

Needless to say the final song is the big draw. Called here "B-Movie",sometimes referred to as "Ray-Gun" one could actually base an entire review on this slap bass fueled belated "united funk" groove's lyrics alone. Especially how they relate to contemporary society. Using then president Reagen (called Ray-Gun for the occasion) as an easy metaphore this boils down in 12 minutes how politically leaders have literally AND figuratively become nothing but "actors in a B-movie" as we begin to realize how America has become "a consumer not a producer",hense the knowledge the country was eating itself away metaphorically. It's the centerpiece of the album for sure and relates it's message strongly. In many ways this song represents the whol album: a "united funk" era album that musically and lyrically arrived about five years too late,for sure. Even still it's one of Gil Scott's most fascinating album from every perspective and certainly put him back on the map as a true artist as opposed to a potential commodity.

In 1982 I was in my senior year of undergrad, and as a member of the student newspaper and I was assigned to review Reflections....and LOVED IT...this was before Rap and I thought it was great urban poetry. I hung with a crazy mix of white athletes, artists and Deadheads. Yet when I brought this album into our house it unified us as we all sang-along to "B-Movie"---It ain't really your life , ain't really your life, ain't really your life, ain't nothing but a B-Movie" which was a scathing rebuke of the Reagan Administration.

I was excited to see that the Black Student's Association was having Gil onto campus. I gathered folks far and wide and as a resident music guru told everyone that they should not miss this event. We proceeded to get "well-prepared" for this event as we would any concert and got there early and in eager anticipation so we took up the entire 1st two rows. Slowly but surely the entire Hall filled up and everyone else was black. I have to be honest it proceeded to be an uncomfortable 90 minutes as we realized that even though we might be white liberals we were still part of the problem.

Gil played solo from his Rhodes piano as he proceeded to sing/speak his diatribes. We stuck it out even as we felt that every eye in the Hall was on our backs as he sang ---"and Whitey's on the moon". I took a lot of grief for that evening but I think that we were better for it. I know that they all were better for knowing that album. It should be played as a part of history classes to prove that life wasn't all wondrous during the Reagan years.

Benchmark album. Great songs, especially "B Movie". Gil Scott Heron is not just a songwriter, but a great poet. Even the cover art is excellent.

In a sense, this is more of the same, but with Gil, this is a good thing. The poetry jazz construct he always uses works like a charm, particularlly when you have players like the Midnight Band. If this unit had been used for top 40 session back up, it would have beens hits every time.

This does have modern touches like raegee, and the production is more polished. But the music never loses its guts, and Heron had an ability to make his themes fresh and relevent, even when they are similar with every album.

Purchased the orginial LP in the 70's. Love it during this period as a result of Gil style and believe that he was ahead of his time with his wording and approach to getting his message across, as well as, stating the facts of the time. By the way still have LP. I am a child of the 60's free love and all that. Lucky I made it until now. Oh, he was the man on the LP in Vietnam.