Artist: Morrison, Van
Label: Blue Note Records
Release: 2012
Length: 59:34
Rating: 4/5
»Born to Sing: No Plan B« is already the 35th studio album from the cowboy from Belfast, the Northern Irish singer-songwriter giant Van Morrison. It took him four years to put together the follow-up to 2008’s »Keep It Simple«, the longest »gap« in his prolific career.
Unlike on »Keep It Simple«, Van Morrison went back to his roots for the new album, drawing on his primal love for the starting points of blues music. This time the look back goes deeper than you’d expect, all the way to the starting points of Delta blues, you could even say. On the new album the man set himself no arrangement barriers, hence the telling second half of the title: »no Plan B«. In other words, it’s a very direct and genuine piece of work.
To that end, Van Morrison decided to record the new album right at home in Belfast, live-in-the-room style, with a six-piece backing crew, built throughout on a strong horn section of trombone, sax and trumpet. All with one single aim: to reach authenticity and sincerity in his own personal engraving in the art of music, which you hand over to the listener – the receiver. Only on this point, loosening the arrangement barriers, can Van Morrison justify the long running times of some of the tracks. The man was never known as a progressive blues adventurer, so »rambling on« really doesn’t sit well with his general vocabulary. Above all, Morrison is a singer-songwriter, and here the rule is that the message is carried first and foremost by the power of the poetry and the power of the vocal interpretation of it.
It’s precisely this turn back to the roots that has somewhat veiled the typical Celtic swing in the blues and soul rhetoric of this esteemed master songwriter’s vocal majesty, while the new album opens up room for a generous dose of jazz-centricity, melting into the compact R&B and blues form with willing full-bloodedness. »Born to Sing: No Plan B« is an album of exceptional maturity. Van Morrison isn’t pushing hits on us. The days of big successes, and of being right on the pulse, when classics like »Astral Weeks« and then »Moondance« came into being, are long gone, and by 2012 Van Morrison’s musical perception had long since reached a new level of creative expression. On »Born To Sing: No Plan B« Van approaches the material in a whole, calm, considered way. And as we’ve come to expect from him, he delivers his poetry matter-of-factly and solidly, both feet planted firmly on the ground. In his poetry Van Morrison keeps, for 2012, all the relevance of the strange paths of human »civilization«. Once again, as a subtly watchful observer, Van Morrison pours all of it into a bitter confession full of truthfulness. Of course, on the new album too, Van Morrison touches in his poetry on nostalgia for the days of carefree youth, and that touch is at times very intense, which fits the fact that this album was recorded on Van’s home turf.
The new tracks express a rise in organic feel and simultaneity, and above all they’re graced by an ever-growing sophistication that comes with years of experience. The opener “Open the Door (To Your Heart)”, released at the end of August this year as the album’s first single, sets the stage for the »refreshed« studio approach of Van Morrison and company described in the paragraphs above. A magic touch that, like good old wine, only ripens over the years and gains plenty in finishing finesse and detail. And in the same breath, that means a complete return to the beginning. Recording on the first take. Something Van Morrison’s generation made the standard, and something Van Morrison therefore knows all too well. A unique collision of R&B and blues, steeped in a splendid stream of jazz contours, is embodied by one of the best tracks on the album, Goin’ Down To Monte Carlo. For the song Close Enough For Jazz, Morrison couldn’t have found a more fitting title. It’s a track whose verses were written after the fact, once it had been recorded as an instrumental. They were added at the last minute. This very song most vividly defines those starting points of the blues, the »grandfather« that gave rise to the development of jazz through swing. And Van Morrison has masterfully ruled this musical niche since time immemorial in his long-lived career. Pagan Heart can safely be called a tribute to the Delta blues torchbearers John Lee Hooker and Robert Johnson. The interpretive power of Van Morrison’s vocal charge flares up generously in the soulful confession of the nostalgic End Of the Rainbow, while the closing Educating Archie, cut in the style of the old R&B school, which the title track comes closest to on the album, can be read as a cheeky parody of the corporate-ness of the BBC (the song’s name is taken from a BBC series of the fifties).
On the new album Van Morrison has held on to all his recognizable trademarks, redefined them, and in that redefinition laid down on tape a stream of freshness and colorful, expressively flexible liveliness. He got there partly by allowing himself to step a step away from his elementary role and give more room to the six-piece backing crew. Alongside the basic vocal traits that define Van Morrison as an interpreter, it’s precisely this conscious step back that opened the door further for him to look more deeply into the roots of the blues, while his vocal fire, with its typical traits of pain, contrasted with a boiling-over, softly rolling sway, remains untouched. A character that roughly brings under one roof fans of the expressive range of Ray Charles and Fats Domino on one side, and, if we go by geographic origin, on the other the legendary Irish hero George Best, who, just like Morrison, comes from east Belfast.
This record doesn’t lack juiciness. Van Morrison stepped back, took a look at the road he’s traveled, and focused strictly on what’s in his heart. What else is there left to do in your later years. The result is a redefined, familiar musical language that, as a whole, sounds fresh, colorfully contrasted and, as always when we’re talking about Van Morrison, one of a kind. Born to sing! No less, no more!
Lineup
Van Morrison – vocals, guitar, piano, alto sax
Paul Moran – Hammond organ, trumpet, piano, keyboards
Alistair White – trombone
Chris White – tenor sax, clarinet
Dave Keary – guitar, “slide” guitar
Paul Moore – bass guitar
Jeff Lardner – drums, percussion
Production
Van Morrison
Track list
01. Open The Door (To Your Heart)
02. Going Down To Monte Carlo
03. Born To Sing
04. End Of The Rainbow
05. Close Enough For Jazz
06. Mystic Of The East
07. Retreat And View
08. If In Money We Trust
09. Pagan Heart
10. Educating Archie
