Mid town rush (Tom Scott) (LP 2343 - 2344)

Tom Scott  New York Connection (Vinyl, Ode Records, 1975) *** 

Tom Scott  Street Beat (Vinyl, CBS Records, 1979) *** 

Genre: Jazz; jazz rock

Places I remember: Catch up in the jazz collection.

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Car Wars (Street Beat)

Gear costume: Appolonia (Foxtrata) 

Active compensatory factors: I'm not a huge fan of Tom Scott and the only reason for owning New York Connection is George Harrison's appearance on one track - Appolonia (Foxtrata) playing his distinctive slide guitar.

Aside from that it's pleasant mellow modern jazz from Tom and some East Coast jazz musicians like Hugh McCracken, Richard Tee, Eric Gale, and Steve Gadd.  Bob James is also a welcome presence.

Street Beat is grittier, hence the name, and also has some vocal tracks, so it leans more toward jazz rock than it does jazz. The vocals don't help - let's just say that.

Where do they all belong? A nice corner of the modern jazz zeitgeist.

Touchdown (Bob James) (LP 240)

Bob James All Around The Town (Vinyl - CBS, 1981) *****

Genre: Cool Jazz  

Places I remember:  Marbecks Records (Queen's Arcade, Auckland)

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: We're All Alone




Gear costume:  Angela, Stompin' At The Savoy, and the rest!

Active compensatory factors: You'll instantly know at least one track on this album - Angela (Theme From "Taxi"). It's a muscular version on show here.

As are the rest of these songs - recorded with a variety of combos. All of Bob's strengths are on show and none of his weaknesses (polite production I'd call it).

We're All Alone is a peak. I remember Roger Marbeck playing this and I remember the first time I heard it. Those horns rip!!

And, before you yell - what about the lack of continuity between these live cuts?? Why haven't you taken a point off for that huh?? This isn't like a rock album where I really need to feel it's a cohesive live document. This is jazz! Cool jazz.

Where do they all belong? A 'best of' compilation is probably your next safest bet with the prolific Bob.

Ring out the false, ring in the true (George Harrison) # 133 - 137

George Harrison Dark Horse/ I Don't Care Anymore (Apple, NZP 3493, 1974)

George Harrison Dark Horse/ Hari's On Tour (Express) (EMI, A 10696, 1974)

George Harrison Ding Dong/ I Don't Care Anymore (Apple, NZP 3494, 1974) 

George Harrison Dark Horse/ You (Starline/ Capitol, 6245, 1974/1975)

George Harrison You/ World Of Stone (Apple, NZP 3520, 1975)

The second batch of Hari's singles sees us in the dark days of 1974/1975. The days of the Pattie Boyd/ Eric Clapton romantic triangle with George, the dark days of lives ruined by alcohol and cocaine,  the dark days of the disastrous 1974 tour (George, never the most willing tourist, quickly lost his voice and had to soldier on - I have bootlegs of the tour and, believe me, it was embarrassing for all concerned) and the dark days of Extra Texture - for me, George's worst record ever.

Here's a taster of that tour:




Of course these things are relative and George is a bleedin' former Beatle so even Extra Texture has one bright moment of sheer class - You. A superb song and a great single.

I have a soft spot for Dark Horse (song and album) and so I have no real problem with the singles listed above. Even good old Ding Dong is worthy! George is remarkably frank about the love triangle on the album (Bye Bye Love and others), which is against character for him. He doesn't generally subscribe to Lennon's confessional style of songwriting so this is quite refreshing. BTW Dark Horse (the album) has an awesome cover - just saying!

The slew of singles with roughly similar tracks can be explained by looking at the numbers of each single: they come from Australia, NZ and the USA - each country seems to have been a law unto themselves as we saw from my earlier trawl through the Beatle's singles (and we'll see again when we get to the other solo fabs).

Hidden gems: Slim pickings here. I'm a loss to explain the popularity of I Don't Care Anymore and the Starline single is a double A side Capitol reissue. That leaves Hari's On Tour (Express) - a pleasant instrumental throwaway (Express is a reference to Tom Scott's band L.A. Express who played on the Dark Horse album and '74 tour) and World Of Stone which is just depressing (from The ET album which I also find depressing - except for You).