Customer Reviews

Solid Bond

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

 

 

man, i've waited for years for this to be reissued, and i'm delighted with it. rhino did a great job as the cd sounds great! part studio/part live sets fill this cd. the studio material really has ginger baker and dick hecstll-smith shining. this remastered edition really brings out the drums and how great of a drummer baker is. john mclaughlin doesn't show up on the studio, but live material. i'm a big fan of the troubled, graham bond. he played with some great musicians at a wonderful time period. i like the early blues/jazz scene of the 60s. anyway if your reading this review, you're probably familiar with the artist. get this long awaited release. you won't be sorry.

Graham Bond - wildman; madman; shaman. All these descriptions could be apt. This album (originally a double vinyl release if I remember correctly) is basically The Graham Bond Organisation (Graham Bond, Jack Bruce; Ginger Baker, Dick Heckstall-Smith) with the added delights of Jon Hiseman and John McLaughlin thrown in. If you know the Organisation you'll know what to expect - driving organ led R&B with that idiosyncratic throaty voice out front, Heckstall-Smith's reeds blowing up a storm, powerhouse drumming and polyrhythms galore! This album was originally released circa 1970 and a few of the tracks may be familiar to listeners from other versions by linked bands (Neighbour, Neighbour; Walkin' In The Park; The Grass Is Greener), along with a loping 'Bond'ed version of Green Onions that might have had Cropper and Co. looking askance at the time. The live Ho Ho Country Kicking Blues will be familiar to Jack Bruce listeners: it's HCKHH Blues which appears on Things We Like, where it was performed by Bruce, Hiseman, Heckstall-Smith and McLaughlin, the latter more subdued here than on the Things We Like version. Elsewhere on the album, particularly in what would have been disc one of the vinyl release, there are echoes of Holy Magick in some of the musical phrasing. The final few live instrumental tracks with McLaughlin in the band are the best and sound like another album altogether (Things We Like live?) but it's all good. Recommended.

Amazon's system automatically puts a review we write for one pressing of a title, into review sections for ALL pressings of the title. That is ridiculous. Not all pressings sound the same. As an example, the old bootleg pressing for this album sounds pathetic compared to the Collector's Choice legit pressing. But of course Amazon knows all, so we shouldn't feel we're being inconvenienced.

Just Clapton is missing in Graham Bond Organisation. Bond music is something between jazz and blues. Bruce and Baker had a good teacher, with Alexis Korner,too, I suppose.