Customer Reviews

Swan

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I have been a Bob James fan for very long and I try not to have favourite Bob James albums. However, if I have to choose it has to be between "The Swan" and "Grand Piano Canyon". I bought The Swan in 1984 (in South Africa - it must have been released there simultaneously as the Japanese edition) as I did with all my Bob James music: walk into the record store, take the new BJ album off the shelve, pay and walk out. I used to sit down at home and listen quietly in my armchair. I remember my delight listening to it for the first time as if it was yesterday. The Swan, La Delaissade, Quietly Crazy for You and Watermusic are performed superbly.

Probably the best smooth jazz CD from BJ. The Swan is my all-time favourite track, i can listen to this song forever, absolute masterpiece. La Delaissado,Prospero and Quietly Crazy For You, although heavily jazzed up with somehow messy improvisations from Peter Erskine on drums have the same "New Age" synths that makes the Swan so extra loveable, but the Swan is more organized.

It's tempting at times to call what is known in most circles as "smooth jazz" as nothing more than modern glorified Muzak. It's tempting, but I wouldn't. And much of this style has been around for more than four decades now. One of the masters in this form has been keyboardist and arranger Bob James.

Dating all the way back to the mid-1960s, though the bulk of his output really started with his 1974 album ONE, James has proven to be one of the best exponents of this admittedly relaxing but often engaging form. Such is the case with his 1995 album THE SWAN. As has been the case with so much of what he has done, the arrangements are often lush, sometimes fairly dramatic in their own way, and always eminently listenable. And as has also been the case with several of his albums, he also cagily adapts some works from the classical realm. The title track, for instance, is a beautiful rendition of a movement from the famous piano-cum-orchestral suite "The Carnival Of The Animals" by the French composer Camille Saint-Saens; "La Delaissado" is adapted from the very ancient song collection "Haute-Auvergene"; and "Water Music" adapts the Minuet from the F Major suite of George Frideric Handel's Baroque-era masterpiece collection of that same name. The three other tracks--"Prospero"; "Ensenada Madness"; and "Quietly Crazy For You"--are originals, with musical palettes ranging from Shakespeare-inspired impressionism ("Prospero" being inspired by the Bard's "The Tempest"), to Latin jazz.

Nobody who has a taste for this style of music, however "unhip" it may be to others, should miss catching an audio glimpse of THE SWAN.

This is a "black pearl" of the Bob James discography, and one not to be overlooked at that. Recorded around the same time as FOXIE (circa. 1983), it was originally released only in Japan. This release was issued for the first time in the U. S. along with the bulk of his vintage solo material on Warner Bros, and Tappan Zee (Bob's own label). The material ranges from dreamy and graceful ("The Swan", "Water Music", and "La Delaissado"--also from Haute-Auvergne), to dizzying ("Prospero" and "Ensenada Madness"). The CD closes with a number by the late Mike Lawrence ( "Quietly Crazy For You"). THE SWAN is truly a treasure in every sense!