You know something weird is going on when you agree with the Wall Street Journal for a music review. But in their review of Jeff Beck’s new DVD Performing This Week: Live at Ronnie Scott’s, they end the write-up by saying that this DVD is proof that Jeff Beck is the greatest electric guitarist working. Who am I to disagree.
I just got the DVD (the music is out on CD, too) - just whoa.
Jeff Beck is a man of taste in a genre defined by the lack of it. Fusion - the very word makes my skin crawl (sorry, fusion lovers - YMMV). But when he came out with **Blow by Blow **and **Wired **, he kinda ruined the genre because what he does is so subtle - his command of melody and phrasing as he improvises is so deceptively masterful - that it makes fusion music sound great until you hear others try to do it. It’s kinda like Eddie Van Halen - when he does his gymnastics they sound cool and integrated into a cool song - but that does NOT mean that every wheedly-wheedly weenie can come close, you know?
ANYway - so the DVD is a collection of music I normally don’t like, played masterfully. The bassist is a young Australian prodigy named Tal Wilkenfeld - she’s maybe 22 and just a bass monster. You think Beck has somehow gotten Hannah Montana up on stage with him until she solos and even he steps back. They have great on-stage communication. The drummer is an old-school veteran who does a great job and the keyboardist is fine, but opts for too many Jan Hammer synthy tones that sound unnatural compared to the other sounds (a complaint I had when Hammer played them originally).
But Beck - I mean, really, there is no contest. At one point, Eric Clapton comes out to play and sing on a couple of songs you have to wonder why Clapton goes out there - it is like sending a boy out to play with a man; it is borderline embarrassing. Don’t get me wrong Clapton does fine and does an admirable job of Clapton licks. Okay - try this analogy: it’s like Clapton is Julia Roberts - a bigger celebrity, respected for the things she can do and paid biggest bucks, whereas Beck is like Meryl Streep, just a flat-out master who technical superiority is far greater (and Roberts would be the first to admit), who is a celebrity but not as big. Does that work? Or - Clapton is Murray Gell-Mann - a brilliant physicist who is smart in the way that you and I are smart, but he can brute-force through more thinking vs. you and me; whereas Beck is Richard Feynman - just a freakin’ magician that is operating on a plane we mere mortals can’t hope to understand. Maybe that’s it…
Watching Beck work is…well, it’s magic. He has his own right-hand style where he is working the whammy bar, doing volume swells with the volume knob, strumming, picking and muting strings - all at the same time! His use of the whammy is particularly gob-smacking: unlike EVH, who uses his whammy work as punctuation (e.g., super-fast lead - then wham into a dive bomb), Beck uses the whammy as another option for phrasing. Meaning, he could just go from the 12 to the 15th fret, or maybe he could hit the 12th fret, then pre-depress the whammy while grabbing the 15th fret, so it sounds while pushed down to still be at the 12th fret, and then he releases so it tightens the string back up to full intonation at the 15th fret. But that isn’t a trick - he just makes that choice on the fly and mixes in pre-bends and other whammy techniques simply to sound melodic and cool.
His attack sounds as much like Derek Trucks on slide as a guy playing with no slide. But when Beck plays slide - as he does on a couple of tracks - I mean, jeez, it’s as good as Trucks - and I love Derek Trucks!! But Beck is that good - and it’s embarrassing because he just stuffs this rinky-dink looking Guitar Center glass slide onto the end of his middle finger - he looks like a complete beginner! - and then he kills. And when he takes it off and uses it with his picking hand to play up in Duane Allman Layla territory up close to the pickups? I didn’t even know he could do that and it is just awesome.
My favorite track is Rollin’ and Tumblin’ at the end with Imogen Heap on vocal (heard the name but hadn’t see her - she is beautiful AND talented). It’s one of the more aggressive songs and just smokes. Here’s a studio versionof that song from a previous album.
I may be the WordMan, but words don’t do his playing justice. If you like his music this DVD is a given, but if you are the least bit curious to see what a guitarist at the top of his or anyone’s game is capable of, I strongly recommend it…
