JSngry Posted November 23, 2015 Report Share Posted November 23, 2015 Harold Land and Teddy Edwards, both in fine form. Full choruses apiece, mostly, on each cut. Matthew Gee too, for those who might be looking. Mr. Beeks himself is in somewhat unfortunate form, I gather that his was not the happiest of endings, but just wait for him to stop, then it gets good. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paul secor Posted November 23, 2015 Report Share Posted November 23, 2015 Haven't listened to that one in a long time. My memories weren't anything special, but I'll have to listen again. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JSngry Posted November 23, 2015 Author Report Share Posted November 23, 2015 Singing is pretty disheartening. Playing is GREAT! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikeweil Posted November 28, 2015 Report Share Posted November 28, 2015 (edited) If you know Pleasure's complete output of just three LPs worth of material, it's not that much different from his average form. But he was in better form on his last LP for United Artists from 1962, which includes a masterpiece, Swan Blues, a vocalese on Gene Ammons' Hittin' The Jug. In comparison, the Golden Days LP has superior sidemen. Nice to hear Matthew Gee in such a relaxed mood. Edited November 28, 2015 by mikeweil Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JSngry Posted November 28, 2015 Author Report Share Posted November 28, 2015 Yeah, the recommendation for this particular album,is not for the vocals, but for the soloings, which are splendid and plentiful. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JSngry Posted December 9, 2015 Author Report Share Posted December 9, 2015 Playing this again this afternoon...geez, Mr. Beeks is in pretty dire form,,, BUT - There is a plethora of great Harold Land and Teddy Edwards on this record Really looking at the liner notes for the first time where the dude expounds pretty rigorously on his life system of "Planetism" and...whoa... Those are two pretty big buts in my estimation. Is there a really detailed life story of Clarence Beeks anywhere? Seems like there some kind of story here, not just another footnote. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paul secor Posted December 10, 2015 Report Share Posted December 10, 2015 Very good playing by the two tenors. Not sure if it's enough to make up for the singing. Just my take. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JSngry Posted December 10, 2015 Author Report Share Posted December 10, 2015 Listened to it a few more times last night...for me it is very much worth it for the tenors, mileages variable, no doubt, but that's some damn fine Land & Edwards on there. As for the singing, the more I listen, the more bizarre the session itself becomes. Beeks is, like, shifting beats around within his lines, starting them in different places than the solos and his original recordings, and it sounds like he's doing this consciously, but his pitch is so weird...I don't know. But he's so unbothered/unaware of it that I'm thinking he's in some kind of a zone here. And then to read the liner notes...jeez, right from jump he says My real name is Clarence Beeks. My professional name of "King Pleasure" is by selection as strange as the sudden "revelation" that occurred to me in my sleep and woke me upright at the age of six in Oakdale, Tenn., my birthplace. The revelation was that I was the real savior of humanity. And that I was a baby planet nucleus! and he goes on from there into a description of the origins of vocalese, how it was originally intended as a form of coded, private communication of thoughts which could not otherwise be spoken. Then he goes into Planetism, which in and of itself is not quite what you expect from a guy who had a few jukebox hits earlier in the decade, if you know what I mean. So this is where the guy was at the time of this session. Was he crazy? Was he high? was he genuinely blissed out? Hell if I can tell, all I can tell for real is that the guy's in a weird place technically with his singing, and listening more and more to how the band deals with it as it unfolds is fascinating, Gerald Wiggins in particular, and Earl Palmer especially in particular. Every local jazz scene has had situations where a local singer who may or may not be any good gets gigs or hosts sessions and hires the very best players available, and how they in turn play the shit out of the music, holding it together for the singer becuase, you know, that's why they're the best, ok? This record is like that, only, hello, not just one top-shelf tenor, but two, two very top-shelf tenors, and nobody gets limited by this being a vocal date, cats get more allotment here than they would have gotten on a 78, sometimes more. No producer is credited, but the label was David Axelrord's, right? Wiggins is credited as arranger, so maybe he functioned as producer as well. But..what's this about "Moody's Mood For Love" The girl singer on the old record was Blossom Dearie. The young lady with Pleasure here must, unfortunately, remain anonymous. If this existed in a vaccum, well, ok, so what. But in the context of this session, all the other stuff that is obviously going on...wtf? I'll also point out the final lyrics of "All Of Me", Beeks is singing about shit like do you want a crazy person on your conscience?, shit like that, and the vibe is that he's speaking retroactively, like he's in THAT place. And listen to the words of "Golden Days"... All the biographical info I've read about Beeks is general/sketchy, a combination of the most basic facts and various "reported to have..." type things. But holy shit, this was a guy who saw himself as a savior of humanity, spoke in what he perceived to be a private language, and invented a thing called Planteism (the basic principles of which he uses Linus Pauling to support). I'm thinking there's more to this story than just some guy who got lucky with a few juke box hits and then wandered about making occasional comeback attempts, this ain't Earl Coleman. Even though Earl Coleman's got a story (and although I much prefer Earl Coleman as a singer), it ain't this story! All in all, not a "great" record by any stretch of the imagination. But to paraphrase Dan Rather...it's an interesting record...not an amusing record, but an interesting record. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paul secor Posted December 10, 2015 Report Share Posted December 10, 2015 "All in all, not a "great" record by any stretch of the imagination. But to paraphrase Dan Rather...it's an interesting record...not an amusing record, but an interesting record." I can agree with that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JSngry Posted December 12, 2015 Author Report Share Posted December 12, 2015 On 11/28/2015, 5:44:21, mikeweil said: ...he was in better form on his last LP for United Artists from 1962, which includes a masterpiece, Swan Blues, a vocalese on Gene Ammons' Hittin' The Jug. Played the BN issue of this one (which also includes singles from Aladdin & Jubilee) a few times today and completely agree, on all counts. And yet, I can let it go with little to no resistance. Golden Days has some kind of weird undercurrent of disturbance which keeps pulling me back in. I'm not ready to file it away yet. Go figure. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikeweil Posted December 12, 2015 Report Share Posted December 12, 2015 Don't know very much about Mr. Beeks' biography (who knows?), but what was he doing in California? How did he get there? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JSngry Posted December 12, 2015 Author Report Share Posted December 12, 2015 That's nowhere near as curious as the scattered reports of him being in/around Cincinnati in the latter 1960s...of all the places to be, why that one (unless the usual family/etc.), King Records? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paul secor Posted January 12, 2016 Report Share Posted January 12, 2016 Listened to this at home over the weekend and it sounded better. My previous (re)listen was in the car, so I guess that's to be expected. I'm still not sure if the tenor solos are enough to make me keep the CD, but at least I'm considering that at this point. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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