EAN: 0081227990718

Astral Weeks is generally considered one of the best albums in pop music history, but for all that renown, it is anything but an archetypal rock & roll album. It it isn't a rock & roll al… More...

Astral Weeks is generally considered one of the best albums in pop music history, but for all that renown, it is anything but an archetypal rock & roll album. It it isn't a rock & roll album at all. Van Morrison plays acoustic guitar and sings in his elastic, bluesy, soulful voice, accompanied by crack group of jazz studio players: guitarist {|Jay Berliner|}, upright bassist {|Richard Davis|}, {|Modern Jazz Quartet|} drummer {|Connie Kay|}, vibraphonist {|Warren Smith|} and soprano saxophonist {|John Payne|} (also credited on flute, though that's debatable -- some claim an anonymous flutist provided those parts). Producer {|Lewis Merenstein|} added chamber orchestrations later and divided the album into halves: In The Beginning and Afterwards with four tunes under each heading. Morrison's songs are an instinctive, organic mixture of Celtic folk, blues, and jazz. He fully enters the mystic here, more in the moment than he ever would be again in a recording studio. If his pop hit Brown-Eyed Girl was the first place he explored the previous -- i.e., the depths of his memory -- for inspiration and direction, he immerses himself in it here. The freewheeling, loose feel adds to the intimacy and immediacy in the songs. They are, for the most part, extended, incantatory, loosely narrative, and poetic ruminations on his Belfast upbringing: its characters, shops, streets, alleys, and sidewalks, all framed by the innocence and passage of that era. Morrison seems hypnotized by his subjects; they comfort and haunt a present filled with inexhaustible longing and loneliness. He confesses as much in the title track: If I ventured in the slipstream/Between the viaducts of your dream/Where immobile steel rims crack/And the ditch in the back roads stop/ Could you find me?/Would you kiss-a my eyes/...To be born again.... Morrison doesn't reach out to the listener, but goes deep inside himself to excavate and explore. The album's centerpiece is Madame George, a stream-of-consciousness narrative of personal psychological and spiritual archetypes deeply influenced by the road novels of {|Jack Kerouac|}. The climactic epiphany experienced on Cyprus Avenue paints a portrait of place and time so vividly, it fools listeners into the experience of shared -- but mythical -- memory. The Way Young Lovers Do is the most fully formed tune here. Its swinging jazz verses and tight rhythmic choruses underscore a simmering, passionate eroticism in Morrison's lyric and delivery. {|Astral Weeks|} is a justified entry in pop music's pantheon. It is unlike any record before or since; it mixes together the very best of postwar popular music in an emotional outpouring cast in delicate, subtle musical structures. Music>Music>Vinyl>BN.com Vinyl>BN.com Vinyl, Rhino Core >3<

2008, EAN: 0081227990718

Avec ce chef-d´oeuvre de 1968, le barde irlandais abat les frontières qui séparaient jusqu´ici rock, folk, pop, blues, soul et jazz. Astral Weeks contient réellement tout cela, et plus en… More...

Avec ce chef-d´oeuvre de 1968, le barde irlandais abat les frontières qui séparaient jusqu´ici rock, folk, pop, blues, soul et jazz. Astral Weeks contient réellement tout cela, et plus encore ! Avec ses violons, sa flûte, ses incantations, Sweet Thing est l´exemple parfait de cette chanson ovni, instantanément appréhendée comme un classique et totalement inclassable. La guitare folk de Van Morrison est en parfaite communion avec ses musiciens essentiellement jazz - la batterie est pilotée par le génial Connie Kay du Modern Jazz Quartet et la contrebasse par le non moins virtuose Richard Davis, qui épaula Eric Dolphy, Stan Getz, Ahmad Jamal et tant d´autres. Sa poésie est un flot de grâce, sa voix devient un fil d´Ariane hypnotique, et le résultat ne ressemble à rien de connu alors. Juste à du Van Morrison ; et à son plus grand disque. (donnée non spécifiée) - Parution : 23/09/2008 - chez Warner Musique > Audio Variété > Vinyle album, Warner<

2009, EAN: 0081227990718

Pop Musik Van Morrison Pop, Warner Music, 26.06.2009, Warner Music, 2009

EAN: 0081227990718

Pop Pop Musik Musik>Vinyl>Rock, Warner Music