Artist: Beck, Jeff
Label: Eagle Records
Released: 2009
Running time: 155 min
Rating: 5/5
Few guitar virtuosos wouldn’t crack under the nerves if Jimmy Page and Robert Plant were watching them from right below the stage, while the ever-serious, stern Eric Clapton showed off his mastery barely a yard away. But Jeff Beck certainly wouldn’t count among them. When Beck stepped onto the stage of London’s legendary Ronnie Scott’s jazz club in late November 2007 to kick off the first of five shows there, it was clear something special was coming. The maestro hadn’t played a room this small with a band in almost forty years, since the Marquee Club on Wardour Street, not far from Ronnie’s. Just a few days later, the first incarnation of his band, which featured Rod Stewart and Ronnie Wood alongside Beck, fell apart. So it felt like Beck was coming home, only this time rejuvenated and with a new band that had gotten its baptism by fire just a few months before the London gigs, at Clapton’s Crossroads guitar festival in Illinois.
On drums in London, Beck was joined by Vinnie Colaiuta, whom we remember from Zappa’s albums Joe’s garage and Tinseltown rebellion, and about whom Steve Vai said that he could play the hardest passages the late Frank ever dreamed up while eating and turning the pages of the sheet music. On keys, Jeff was joined by Briton Jason Rebello, known for his work with Sting, and on bass by the pint-sized, barely twenty-one-year-old Tal Wilkenfeld, whom Bass player magazine named bassist of the year for 2008. With this impressive lineup, Jeff delivered one of the most exciting jazz fusion events of the year before last, though, as mentioned, only a handful of chosen ones could be there. For all the other devotees, a DVD has finally come out this year, and it has already gone platinum in America, which is an extreme rarity these days for concert footage of this kind.
The show opens with the legendary Beck’s bolero from Jeff’s debut, by now something of a trademark for the former Yardbirds guitarist, and a tune that, mostly because of the dispute over authorship, stirred up some hot blood between Beck and Jimmy Page in the past. But judging by the applause the now gray-haired Page gave Jeff from the audience after the set, the old feuds have been forgotten. Cause we’ve ended as lovers is a Stevie Wonder cover that drew Jeff in mainly with its melody, and Behind the veil is a masterpiece by Tony Hymas, which you can find on the 1989 album Beck’s guitar shop. Besides the cult classic Scatterbrain (from the album Blow by blow), it’s worth mentioning the cover of Curtis Mayfield’s People get ready, where Joss Stone joins Beck on vocals, and the song Blanket, where the promising English singer Imogen Heap shows off her pipes. The peak of the show, of course, is the two numbers with Clapton, whom Beck introduces with the words: “There’s a guy who knows his way around a Fender Stratocaster.” First Muddy Waters’ Little brown bird, then Willie Dixon’s You need love. Even though Beck always got along better with Clapton, whom he succeeded in the Yardbirds, than with Page, Eric didn’t respond to Jeff’s first invitation. He only softened up when Beck brought up the covers they listened to decades ago on a cleverly rigged record player hooked up to a rickety amp in the back seat of Jeff’s car. On top of that, Beck had also joined in at the aforementioned Crossroads festival, and Clapton paid him back in London in the best way possible. For that rare collaboration alone, the gig at Ronnie’s is priceless, and pure guitar nirvana for every six-string fanatic.
Beck is a genius all his own. His sound is minimalist, yet monumental at the same time, and his technique, which would make any orthodox guitar teacher cringe, is anything but orthodox. Worth pointing out especially is his left thumb, which almost never supports the neck of the guitar, but, Hendrix-style, comes over the top onto the fretboard and presses down on the low E string when needed. The old bluesmen invented that grip, and Beck, together with his peculiar fingerpicking and unusual use of the tremolo, skillfully adapted it to modern rock. Even though his jazz-fusion has a touch of Zappa-esque daredevilry and even some rudimentary tapping, his style is far from the one that defined the guitar world in the eighties. You could even say that today, when formless technique is valued less and less, that is his greatest asset. Beck’s golden era was the sixties, and although he was also renowned as an instrumentalist in the seventies, which were marked by the unsurpassed albums Blow by blow and Wired, the decade of big hair and skin-tight pants was anything but a success for him. Unlike Eric Johnson, whose fingers most effectively combine the old school with newer approaches, Beck didn’t pick the middle road. More than learning tough patterns, he was into experimenting, strange sounds and endless delays that open new horizons of the soul. The best proof of that is the instrumental interpretation of A day in the life (Lennon, McCartney) and the closing chapter of the Ronnie’s show, titled Where were you. But, as said, the wheel has already turned, and the guitar (with the minor modifications that recent history has branded it with after all) is heading back to its roots. And for that return, there’s surely no better name than Jeff Beck.
Lineup
Jeff Beck – guitar
Vinnie Colaiuta – drums
Jason Rebello – keyboards
Tal Wilkenfeld – bass
Track list
1. Beck’s bolero
2. Eternity’s breath
3. Stratus
4. Cause we’ve ended as lovers
5. Behind the veil
6. You never know
7. Nadia
8. Blast fron the east
9. Led boots
10. Angel (footsteps)
11. People get ready
12. Scatterbrain
13. Goodbye pork pie hat/Brush with the blues
14. Space boogie
15. Blanket
16. Big block
17. A day in the life
18. Little brown bird
19. You need love
20. Rollin’ and tumblin’
21. Where were you
