Customer Reviews

Turn It Over

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is the best way to describe this dark, bizarre, but extraordinary faceted album. Certainly not for the "unhip", or faint hearted, this recording weaves through some interestingly uncharted waters. From Tony's vocal in "This Night This Song", John Mclaughlin's distorted guitar in "Right On", to his subtle chord accompanyment to Jobim's "Once I Loved", complete with Khalid Yasin (Larry Young) screeching Hammond organ.("Allah Be Praised", has some great Yasin (Young) moments!) I especially dig (to my wife's chagrin) cranking up Jack Bruce's out of key vocal in "One Word", which I think is spectacular.

A highly inventive, and original venture.

Also recommened: The Tony Williams Lifetime: Emergency!

"Turn It Over", the second (and probably also the best) release from the original tony williams lifetime, is much more satisfying than their earlier effort "Emergency" in terms of production quality. Not to mention the fact that this album represents the apex of the post Blue-note discography of influential organist Larry Young (aka Khalid Yasin). Each tune here burns with a raw intensity unmatched by any other release from the early days of "Jazz-fusion". "Focused" is the word that characterises these short and brilliant vamps; from the uncomprimising straightforwardness of "Once I Loved", to the brilliant organ in trane's "Big Nick", to the heights of ecstasy reached on Young's own contribution "Allah be Praised", each lick on this album has for this author provided endless delights. It seems that unfortunately not many others agree with these sentiments then or now, and as a consequence, Lifetime's "Turn It Over" remains a hidden gem waiting for open eared music lovers to discover.

This album has the most breathtakingly aggressive rock drumming ever recorded. Sure, John Bonham could really pound, and Keith Moon could whip up a fine mess of busy psychotic fills, but no one could attack the drums with the physical power and polyrythmic genius that Williams displays here. His playing on "To Whom It May Concern" is like a pinpoint-precise cyclone: relentlessly driving but full of outside fills that he drops in lightning-fast like a skilled boxer. The album is full of extreme emotions and it feels like the band is constantly pushing things to the edge, but then that was Williams' intention, I think; in an old (old, old) interview with Newsweek he said that he was trying to see how much the audience could take, how far they could follow before the music got to be too much.

The drawback of the album is that some of the "rock" tricks sound really dated: "Vuelta Abajo" sounds like a soundtrack to a late-60's biker film, and what to make of McLaughlin's trippy narrative on "A Famous Blues"? ("Stay...in the black abyss of your head...searching the murky corridors of your mind." Like, wow, man!) I used to also be put off by Williams' awful vocals on "This Night This Song", but now I'm starting to think that they fit in, somehow.

Anyway, this is true "acid jazz", meaning jazz played like acid rock, full of feedback, extreme concepts, and outrageous energy and volume. It's also what jazz/rock fusion should have been since it melds the anarchic feel of rock with the virtuousity of jazz, instead of lapsing into feel-good background music. Buy it!

The Tony Williams Lifetime debut effort, Emergency!, is a must have recording for any student of jazz-fusion, it's a spectacular CD that pretty much set the agenda for those who followed. Consider the line-up, Tony Williams, drum vunderkind and virtuoso, John McLaughlin, guitar prodigy, and Larry Young, an innovative organist with a particular sensibility and unique sound.

Turn It Over, the group's sophomore release, is not as consistently mesmerizing, but its highs are just as high. In addition to Williams, McLaughlin, and Young, Turn It Over features Jack Bruce who made a habit of showing up wherever really interesting things were happening, (witness Escalator Over The Hill). His bass is welcome, although his vocal on One Word certainly is not.

Whether Turn It Over is more rock-ish than Emergency! seems like a rather fine point since Williams and company formed Lifetime with the specific intent on destroying the wall between these two idioms. The raw power, fury, and sheer madness of at least half a dozen demons fuel this music, propelling it to a level of intensity that at times is simultaneously intolerable and irresistible.

To Whom It May Concern, (Them and Us), kicks it off in hard-nosed fashion, outstanding. This Night This Song is unfortunate, Williams just doesn't sing well enough to pull it off. Big Nick gets us back on the road, plenty of straight ahead interplay here. Right On is 1:49 of mania likely to blow off the top of your head.

Once I Loved, an odd twist on a lovely song, has Williams singing again, though this time he almost gets away with it. Vuelta Abajo may be the pick of the litter, the group has gelled wonderfully. A Famous Blues really is good for a laugh - let's all remember how stoned and groovy things were in 1970. Allah Be Praised is classic TWL, at times one almost forgets that Tony Williams might be the best jazz drummer ever. About One Word, the less said.

Yes TIO is a beastly baby, even a fleur du mal. Yes it's not as good as Emergency! But honestly, is there anybody else - anywhere - sufficiently talented to think this music up, much less technically adept enough to create it? Turn It Over - in your mind.

One thing that struck me on first hearing this record--but which I haven't seen any commentator note, oddly enough--is how much it resembles the Velvet Underground's _White Light, White Heat_, recorded less than two years before. Even the covers look the same--the same white sans-serif type on black, the same Verve Records logo at the bottom. Certainly the sound of both records deserves comparison. "Right On," for example, has a definite Velvets feel, with McLaughlin's guitar suddenly roaring forth in full distortion as the volume shifts from the repeated drum-pattern. Hard not to think of the moment after Lou says "And then my mind split open" in the middle of "I Heard Her Call my Name"! Williams' odd singing style puts one in mind of Cale's narration of "The Gift," while Young's overloaded organ sound could fit in perfectly on "Sister Ray." Did Tony Williams check out the Velvets before he put this together? I know he was into all kinds of rock then (and did later do amazing stuff with Bill Laswell on PIL's _Album_/_CD_). Too bad he didn't ask Lou to join instead of Jack Bruce!

Even if Williams didn't have the second VU album as inspiration, he was definitely tuned to the ol' zeitgeist circa 1970. This album truly deserves the long-lost '70s epithet, "heavy, man." It's just about the closest that jazz-rock (not to be confused with the wind chimes and synth washes of "fusion") ever got to a full co-opting of rock idioms in the name of jazz improvisation. Anyone into "heavy" music of any sort from any time will love this record, especially people looking for a way into jazz from the rock or metal side of things. Buy it!

This album is really dark and furious. Tony and the boys were not pleased with the thrashing they got in the press for "Emergency," and the negativity is evident here. Angry and dissonent, at times they seem to be bashing out the songs. The performances are brilliant, and the mood makes the listener unsure if all of a sudden the song will stop and Tony will start yelling vulgarities. Even the quiet moments seems like the eye of a hurricane, and the listener is waiting for the fury to spring up again. It reminds me of the music of Tool (really) or of the films of Beat Takeshi (i.e. Sonatine, Violent Cop). Up or down, it has a brooding intensity that doesn't let up.

Having been a devoted Jack Bruce fan & musician myself, I first saw Tony Williams Lifetime at the Capital Theatre in Portchester NY at age 14. I was somewhat confused by what I heard, however so so interested that I could not move througout the concert. The music was not rock,blues or jazz by any of the traditional standards. (NOTE: Fusion had yet to a common genre). Jack played incredible bass, and in fact was reading off charts most of the night... The band was at its infancy and this may have been their first real gig... In spite of being confused as well being blown away by this new sound, I was confident that this new music was ahead of its time. John McLauglin was playing riffs I never heard before.. Tony Willaims was so so new & fresh... (and with a no frills Gretsh Drum set), Larry Young produced sounds you never heard before on the Hammond. This was a band with no restictions, with a new powerful sound that was not quite ready for prime time... A few months later they were playing at Ungano's (A Small NY Club), being under age I at first not allowed in, however I had some rare pictures of Jack with Graham Bond & Alexis Korner, Mr. Ungano showed these to Jack... & Jack invited me in to his dressing room. Jack asked if he could have the pictures... as he did not have them himself.. I obliged, we sat and talked for about 20 minutes... Also in the room was John McLauglin playing & Larry Young talking to a reporter.. They performed that evening in front of a crowd of about 20... can you believe it!!!! They were doing things from Jack's Harmony Row LP (yet to be relesaed) and several tunes from Turn It Over, which was just released. This album was the true creation of what we now know as "Jazz Fusion", the interplay is so spectacular with a mixture of fine jazz & hard driving rock... The CD is meant to be played at a fairly high volume. The band shines on Chick Corea's - To Whom It May Concern (Pt 1 & 2), Coltrane's: Big Nick (Jack on the Upright Bass), Once I Loved (William's vocal & Young's organ display a spooky rendition of this classic), Vuelta Abajo is a hard driving rock/jazz power tune. There is not a bad track on the CD... I have read a few other reviews on this masterpiece and I can see why some can say it is dated a bit, however one must remember this was well before we were listening to Chick Corea's Return To Forever, Larry Coryell's Eleventh House,Miles Davis's true eclectic period (post Bitches Brew),John Abercrombie, Jeff Becks (Blow By Blow Masterpiece), The Mahavishna Orch..w/John McClauglin,Dave Liebman, just to mention a few... If you are a risk taker and innovator... This CD is for you... A True Classic!!!! ...PLAY IT LOUD!!!

Wonderful. Good music for good taster. This is a very good album with stellar playing; a little darker and much more rock-oriented than their debut, 1969's "Emergency". One of the more intense pieces of early jazz-rock/fusion. The album begins with "To Whom It May Concern - Them," and "To Whom It May Concern - Us", a very heavy instrumental workout. "Vuelta Abajo" is really furious and aggressive. I think this is the best song on the album.

If you like jazz-rock, you have to listen this cd.

you really can't convey with words the emotions that this album contains--it is emergency! on crack! it is also an album where williams effectively adds and removes layers of the music which really puts you, the listener, in a different state of awareness. the music is also aggressive--moreso than the stooges, mc5, hendrix, any of them... you just have to listen to the record!

If you have a great sound system, turn up this track real loud and you will see that Mclaughlin is on fire from the opening seconds. He is playing like maha, Tony WIlliams is on fire as well. I feel like dancing crazy on this tune. Mclughlin is toying with the feedback on his guitar and it is soo sick.

I have read interviews from people like Santana, Bruce and others that said this was the scariest or greatst band at this time. Read the book " Go Ahead John", and read the story on this band. It has been said that none of their best suff made it on a disc/record. Right on is a glimpse of how hard these guys rocked. If you caught them live, then you problably caught lightning in a bottle.

Holdsworth was great in TWL as well but he didn't replace Mclaughlin. Ted Dunbar (ego) replaced Mclaughlin, who was making history with the Mahavishnu Orchestra.

You can buy Emergency, and Turn it over and be a little let down by the sound. What I am tryng to say is that when these guys hit the stage, it was on, I mean on. 1969-1970 there problably wasn't a better band on earth. I wish the powers that be could release some of their live stuff.