This Is Gunter Kallman: The Gunter Kallman Choir - Polydor 1970

'This Is Gunter Kallman'? Well you can read that as either a promise or a threat I guess. Kallman* was (yet) another German bandleader peddling a strain of easy listening music during the sixties and seventies, but his own wrinkle was that, like his contemporary Ray Conniff, he came with his own resident male and female choir who added vocal harmonies to the music. From what I can surmise, 'This Is Gunter Kallman' is a 'best of' compilation taken from four other Polydor albums and has title tracks of each present on this album. I'm assuming that was done to give the back catalogue maximum exposure, but it also goes some way to explaining why this particular release sounds like such a trainwreck.  

Because whilst I don't know if those other releases were thematic in nature, I do know that if you wanted a German choir singing a phonetic English version of 'Strangers In The Night', an oompah version of 'Put A Little Love In Your Heart', a faithful interpretation of Binge's patriotic 'Elizabethan Serenade', albeit with a German language vocal pasted over the top of it or a fairly straight take on Handel's 'Largo' then you've come to the right place; this is nothing if not eclectic. For those of us up to date with our bipolar medication though, then even though there's an undeniable voyeuristic curiosity in hearing all these tunes crash into and then bounce off each other in a bagatelle of no rhyme, reason or thematic continuity, it makes for a far from relaxing listen.  

If there are any constants here, then it's the pushed right up in your face choir who sound like they've learned English from a book as a fifth language, and an over reliance on percussive bells and tinkles that rattle along behind the tunes and which make for some rather harsh and bright sounding recordings that are as sharp, brittle and overdone as burned sugar and just as sickly. This is not an album for quiet reflection. And if all that wasn't migraine inducing enough, the back cover prints the running order as aqua blue on a dark green background, making it more akin to the later pages of colour blindness test book than anything remotely readable; when you don't know what's coming next then it makes the experience of listening to this something of a mystery tour but without any magic. Whatever merits any of Kallman's other albums may have I cannot say, I haven't heard them. But I defy anybody to listen to this one in a single sitting and come out the other end with a smile on their face.  

* Oddly, the front and back cover spell the name as Kallman, but the spine adds an extra 'n' to it both times. I won't lose much sleep over which is correct.

Your Favourite TV Themes: Geoff Love & His Orchestra - Music For Pleasure 1973

Two reasons why I picked this one up. First one - unless I stumble upon some old recordings of Hitler's speeches, I don't think I'm going to be writing about another album that has a swastika in the middle of the cover, along with a nice watercolour of two SS officers, so there's a novelty value in reviewing something that would probably be banned for sale from ebay. Second, it has one of my all time favourite TV themes on it's tracklist - 'Galloping Home', Denis King's wonderful theme music to the seventies Sunday tea time staple 'The New Adventures of Black Beauty', a piece of music that, along with the themes to 'Robinson Crusoe' and 'Van Der Valk' are evocative enough of my childhood so as bring a tear to my eye. 

 

Geoff's version on this brought a tear to my eye too, but for all the wrong reasons; King's theme is all urgent strings of motion punctuated by the hoofbeat pound of kettledrums, in other words music fit to soundtrack scenes of a thoroughbred stallion charging though an English meadow on his way home. On his version, Love dispenses with the kettledrums and adds a constantly ticking drum rhythm that's less indicative of speed and power and sounds more like a Yorkshire Terrier scampering for a biscuit, while the horns smear the tune all over the shop like so much cheap jam on so much white bread. This is not a good start Geoffrey.

 

Maybe I should be too surprised though - for the observant, the back cover note give a heads up on what's to come: "Now Geoff Love has selected a further twelve of your favourite TV themes, investing them with his own attractive and popular brand of arrangement to enable you to enjoy these familiar pieces of music in their entirety". The problem of course is that 'attractive' is a rather subjective concept isn't it? And what's so attractive about putting 'favourite TV themes' through the Geoff Love mangle? Because elsewhere, even though the triumphant march of the World of Sport theme had a sense of occasion out of all proportion to the 'sports' the show tended to feature (usually wrestling from Northern town halls and Canadian tractor pulling), Love's arrangement speeds it up, thins it out and adds musical 'jokes' and 'laughs' that would be better suited to soundtracking a sitcom.

 

Elsewhere, the 'Nationwide' theme is chivvied along with added banjo and quite spectacular walking bassline while on 'Upstairs Downstairs' Love plays the same 'Black Beauty' card and adds an incessant drum pattern that rattles like a click track and shakes all the stateliness clean out of the music, sitting it firmly 'Downstairs' in the cheap seats. This is a constant theme to all on offer here - Love does not play it like it was written and instead fiddles around until the familiar becomes just unfamiliar enough to be irritating. All, that is, except the theme from Colditz where even Love seems to know better than to piss off the Nazis and offers up an almost carbon copy of Robert Farnon's stirring theme. Which means he can do it when he wants to, but the fact he rarely does makes this release a frustrating affair and largely redundant in my eyes. Maybe it made more sense back in 1973 when direct comparisons to the originals were harder to come by, making the back cover claim that this album will 'serve as a permanent reminder of the programmes you enjoy' more honest. If all you're after is a 'reminder' then I suppose it works well enough, but those wanting to add accuracy to the pot had best look elsewhere. Start with YouTube.

Everybody Knows Millican & Nesbitt: Millican & Nesbitt - Pye 1974

'Everybody Knows Millican & Nesbitt'? Do they? The back cover note goes even further - 'Of course everybody knows Millican and Nesbitt, or at least they should do by now'. Well I'm sorry but I don't. I've never heard of them. I know that's no barometer of anything really, but equally that's a bold statement to be making too, and even if it did make some kind of sense back in 1974, it rings with an Ozymandian level of hubris now.

 

A quick bit of online research reveals that Alan Millican and Tom Nesbitt were two miners from the North of England who won Opportunity Knocks in 1973 and, very aptly, had two minor UK chart hits thereafter. Which, I suppose, kind of makes them the X Factor winners of their day. How modern audiences would take to two middle aged blokes crooning out easy listening standards I can only guess. I suppose Robson and Jerome provide a comparison of sorts, but their fame was initially as actors in a popular TV show and the singing came later, trading (as it did) on sentimental nostalgia and their appeal to female record buyers (ahem); not wishing to be unkind, but neither Robson nor Jerome looked or dressed like a cross between a nightclub bouncer and a hit man for the Kray twins.

 

That's who they are (or were) anyway, how do they sound? Well 'Everybody Knows Millican & Nesbitt' is made up of a curious mix of some well known standards ('My Way', 'Ramblin' Rose', 'I'll Be With You In Apple Blossom Time') and some far lesser, far more obscure songs (just about all of the rest of them really) with one original written by the pair ('A Kind Of Heartache'). Truth be told though, it doesn't matter all that much what tune they're tackling - 'Everybody Knows Millican & Nesbitt' plods on song after song in the same key, same almost 3/4 waltz time signature with same overcooked, country-ish arrangements that the pair creak and groan over the top of in the same bass-ish/tenor-ish harmonies; Christ this is stodgy stuff, the suet pudding of easy listening served up cold sixteen times in a row. I can almost feel my arteries hardening as I listen. 

 

There's not a lot of variation in any of this; neither Millican or Nesbitt ever break cover from what's obviously a comfort zone style. It may have won them the prize, but over two sides and sixteen songs there's precious little light or shade and no sense of any individuality in their interpretations, not helped by the sheer anonymity of their singing voices.  Fair enough, they can carry a tune without dropping it, but it's all very supper club, all very chicken in the basket and all very, very 1970's.  Millican and Nesbitt would probably have been the 'go to' act for a promoter wanting to add a touch of class to an evening of strippers, racist stand up comics and covers bands down the workingman's club on the weekend, and if that makes me sound like a bit of a snob then fine, I'm happy to own it. It's no less true because of it though and I'm also happy to say I found 'Everybody Knows Millican & Nesbitt' pretty murderous to sit through and, having done so, never intend going anywhere near it again.

12 Tops: Various Artists - Stereo Gold Award 1974

Here's another of those cheap and cheerful seventies complialtions of cover versions I said I was going to be staying away from. This one caught my eye for the both the things you can see, and the things you can't. For the former, I don't think I've seen a tackier looking sleeve on my travels so far. I mean, come on -  a woman crudely added to a foul orange background by whatever the 1974 equivalent of cut and paste was, a jarring yellow colour clash with thick black lines seemingly the only thing stopping them mixing to make green and a title that's about as perfunctory as it could be without saying 'Some Songs, Buy Them'.

The back cover note isn't much better, barking out (with CAPS LOCK on) a series of instructions in the clipped tones of a drill sergeant: "TOP OF THE POP SOUNDS OF TODAY'S TOP HITS WHILE THEY ARE HOT ON THE CHARTS. THE SOUNDS YOU HEAR EVERYDAY ON YOUR RADIO AND TELEVISION. LOOK FOR AN EXCITING NEW ALBUM OF HITS EVERY MONTH. BUILD THE MOST EXCITING COLLECTION OF POP TUNES IN YOUR NEIGHBOURHOOD". You can't say you don't know where you are with this.

For the things you can't see, well this cover is pressed up on the cheapest, paper based product that I think I've ever come across. The Pickwick 'Top Of The Pops' albums had thick card sleeves with a nice, wipe down glossy finish that gave them at least the appearance of quality, but this is about as flimsy as cardboard can get without actually being paper. You could almost wipe your nose on it. I know these are meant to be budget compilations, but I get the impression that the company behind this would have sold it in a brown paper bag with a pair of women's tits drawn on in biro if they thought they could have got away with it.

Anyway, what we have here are twelve tracks that were greater or lesser hits in the UK during November 1974. And in drawing from a single month, as you'd expect, it's a mixed bag that produces mixed results, not least because of the fact that the players here do their best to replicate the originals rather than simply 'covering' the songs in their own style. And as far as that goes, then in the category marked 'good', we have versions of 'Pepper Box' and 'No Honestly' that would stand comparison with the originals in any arena. The proto-electronica of the former is emulated particularly well, while the anonymous female on the latter does a very credible Lynsey de Paul. Had either come on the radio unannounced then I don't think I would have thought anything was amiss and I guess that's all you can ask for in this context. Same with 'Juke Box Jive' and 'Magic' really; neither song had much of an identity in and of itself and any competent session band could have rustled up a version that would have passed muster. And both of these versions do just that.

For the 'bad', well whilst I'm happy to give kudos to the de Paul wannabe, the turns 'doing' Barry White and Suzi Quatro are less rather successful, with the former mistaking asthmatic for soul while the latter shifts Quatro's holler south of Detroit to somewhere around Texas. Y'all. They're not awful, but they're no match or surrogate for the originals either - there's no mistaking these for the real thing. And to take my grading reference to its logical conclusion, the 'ugly' here would be the dreadful take on 'You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet' that turns Bachman Turner Overdrive's power chord, drive time perennial into something that clatters like bones in a biscuit tin, and the version of  'Oh Yes You're Beautiful' drains the swamp of Gary Glitter's ballsy Fifties pastiche until it's just a greasy honk. As above, it's all a mixed bag, albeit a yellow and orange one, though as with anything in this life you get what you pay for.

Strings For Pleasure Play The Music of John, Paul, George and Ringo: Strings For Pleasure - Fanfare 1975

The first thing I want to point out here is that the big yellow circle that says 'The music of John, Paul, George and Ringo' opposite where it says 'Strings For Pleasure play the music of John, Paul, George and Ringo' is not a sticker. It's part of the design of the cover. Quite why it was felt the need to tell us this twice in the space of a few inches I'm not sure, but clearly someone was desperately keen to get the message across that this was the music of the fab four, rather than a compilation of the fab four themselves.* And I'm assuming the reason why it's not emblazoned with 'The Beatles' is because amongst all the music of The Beatles, there's a song each from their solo careers.

 

That in itself raises a point of comment. This album came out in 1975, and if you'd asked the man in the street at the time to name a solo John Lennon song, then like as not he'd have said 'Imagine'. Similarly, 'My Sweet Lord' for Harrison and 'Photograph' for Starr would be predictable choices too so fair enough that they're on this, but 'My Love' for McCartney? It wouldn't have been my choice, either then or now; 'Another Day', 'Jet' and 'Band On The Run' had all been bigger hits by then so it's an odd addition. But it is what it is I guess, so I'd best just get on with listening to it.

 

And so what of it then? Well despite the 'Strings For Pleasure' moniker, there's a lot more to this than just a bland string makeover. In fact, the music here is played by a full band with a chunky guitar, sax or Hammond lead. So that's one surprise, but a bigger one comes from wondering why anybody would want to hear versions of these songs compressed into hacky, instrumental arrangements. Even if you didn't like the vocals and just wanted to sing along to the tunes then you'd be shit out of luck too - the arrangements all too frequently mess around with the familiar melody of the songs, missing beats and whole bars or repeating motifs to no good effect other than making the once familiar incredibly difficult to even hum along to, let along sing.

 

Ironically, the originals of 'Yesterday' and 'Eleanor Rigby' were already scored and arranged for strings, but the folk at Strings For Pleasure can't resist adding a full band to the mix to make them top heavy and drunk man clumsy until they're as weirdly off-kilter as a scene from a David Lynch film or drawing a moustache on the Mona Lisa. Duchamp did this in 1919 but he was making a statement of subversion whereas I get the distinct impression that the folk behind this think that these little tweaks are some kind of improvement. Well they're not, and have to report that this record is horrible. Pointless and horrible. I'd like to think that cover photo of that woman is blurred due to the speed she's moving toward the record deck to turn this crap off.

 

* Stop Press - I did a quick Google search for this and I've found images of the cover without that yellow circle. So I'm assuming my theory is correct and there were complaints from punters who bought this expecting a cheap Beatles 'Best Of' and wound up awfully disappointed.

The Look Of Latin: The City Of Westminster String Band - Pye 1969

There's scope here for a bit of game I think; imagine buying this album but getting it home and finding the wrong record inside the sleeve - would I be able to have a decent stab at what it sounds like from information gleaned off the cover alone? There are plenty of clues there for my inner Sherlock to consider, so let's have a bash.

 

First, the title - 'The Look Of Latin'; well that immediately puts me in mind of Bacharach and David's 'The Look Of Love' and, sure enough, it's there on side two. So I'm guessing some kind of Latin tinged, easy listening affair is on the agenda here. Second, that cover shot - what do we have here? A dusky, pouting woman who looks like she gypsy dances for pesos down the local cantina flanked by a bloke all in black and looking like a cross between a pound shop El Cid and Droopy. I'm not going to reach for the big guns and play the 'racist' card over all this, but I am more than happy to play the one marked 'stereotype'; this contrivance is obviously some ad executive's concept of how folk look south of ze border and, when you add the fact that the music is played by a collective known as 'The City of Westminster String Band', then the whole set up screams 'fake' and 'artifice'. I'm assuming those psychedelic swirls that frame the cover are a belated nod to the times to get the hippy kids interested too. I don't think they have too much to do with 'The Look Of Latin' anyway.

 

So much for the front cover, and yet turn it over and the back cover has informative gold of its own in the form of a note written by one Elizabeth Witham who starts off vague and then proceeds to get vaguer. "You can't have a string band. Bands are brassy and loud. Strings are soft and orchestral." Ummm, well I'm not really sure what she's getting at there, but I'll let it go. "This is a relaxing LP full of the South American sounds, conjuring up distant suns and different lands that most of us have never seen, but know so well through the music of South America." Well ok, there's my initial stab at what this music is all about confirmed in black and white, but I'm happy to say for the record that the 'most of us' she herself has in mind does not include me; I do not know these lands well via the music of South America.

 

"The words will be on the tip of your tongue, the music will instantaniously (sic) come flowing back to you. Some of these tunes have been lying dormant for years just waiting to be given new life and played again." "The individuality of the LP is obtained by the use of harpsichord and soprano sax carefully knitted into the overall sound. This sound is a focal point in music as is Westminster a focal point, hence its incorporation into the orchestra's name." Well that's quite enough of that I think; we're not here to dissect what Ms Witham makes of all this, and I think an Enigma machine would be needed to crack the code of what she's on about anyway - it's what I think that's most important, and I think two of the tracks on this nicely sum up exactly what's being aimed for here - 'The Look Of Love' and 'Volare'.

 

To hit the 'easy listening' mark the album strives for, the former has to be given a Latin 'upgrade' and the former a 'downgrade', all the while lathering some defiantly Western strings over the top of both. This the arrangements dutifully do, but the result on neither is so different from their source material to generate any kind of 'Wow that's different' revelation. They both sound much the same as they ever did and neither sound a million miles away from what Sergio Mendes was doing with Brasil 66, which makes that puff piece on the back cover an exercise in hubris, albeit very badly written hubris - nobody is reinventing the sombrero here.

 

For the rest of it, the album divides quite neatly into two halves, with the first side made up of mainly genuine Latin tunes and side two with predominantly more Western compositions. The former is just Herb Albert pumped with more air, but it's on the latter that things get (slightly) more interesting. And that's because far from invoking hazy sunsets over the Hacienda, the music on the second side is, largely via the harpsichord and soprano sax that Ms Witham identifies, shot through with the chilly remove of a soundtrack to an Italian Giallo, perhaps something Ennio Morricone was sawing off by the yard during the sixties and Portishead were sampling in the nineties. It's not what I expected anyway, and it makes for a more enjoyable listen because of it, but I'm not sure the atmosphere of a lurid murder mystery is exactly what was intended.

 

In the final analysis though, and cutting through all the nonsense, what we have here is a perfectly agreeable album of Latin tinged instrumentals that could burble away in the background to any social gathering without either clearing the room or becoming its focal point. Maybe that's how it should have been marketed, perhaps with a tasteful cover shot of the sun going down over some South American landscape. It certainly doesn't need all the baggage it does come with, and it's baggage that both sets a far too high bar of expectation that it never manages to clear whilst at the same time mires it in cheap cliché that side two manages to break free of.

Hammond Pop Party: Zygmunt Jankowski - Windmill 1972

Another thing I've come to appreciate on my journey through charity shop vinyl is that I never knew there were so many albums devoted to the Hammond organ. These things are Legion and, to my ears, most are them are just as full of demons, bad music ones. On one hand I can ponder why there's any need for so many of the things, but one the other I recognise that to criticise purely on those grounds is probably unfair. 

 

After all, a non fan could reasonably ask why there are so many rap, metal, folk or whatever albums out there too. To the non-believer they're all going to sound the same and so the fact the ubiquity of Hammond albums leaves me baffled shouldn't necessarily count as a black mark against them as it could just as easily count as a black mark against me for showing my ignorance. They are what they are I guess, but to recap - why anyone should need one, let alone dozens of compilations of contemporary hits played as instrumentals on a Hammond organ will forever remain as far removed from my understanding as advanced calculus is from my dog's. And here we have another one all lined up for me to sharpen my claws on.

 

From that bland, non descript title and impenetrable cover art in, "Hammond Pop Party" promises little except more of the same, but appearances can be deceptive From my own (admittedly limited) research, it would appear that "Hammond Pop Party" represents the sole recorded output of Zygmunt Jankowski. I think the man had an inkling that might be the case before he started too, because just as Rocky went for it great guns when he was given a shot at the title out of the blue, Jankowski cranks up his Hammond to the max and plays the shit out of this stuff with the wild abandon of a man with a gun to his head and bare minutes left to live.

 

For once, the term 'happy Hammond' wouldn't be something that required investigation by the trading standards people. Jankowski not only hammers out the main melody with enthusiasm, he plugs the gaps with some outrageous fills, runs and riffs in a way worthy of Keith Emerson at his most unhinged. Never mind his backing band, Jankowski is his own one man orchestra, his own lead and rhythm organist, a role helped no end by a selection of songs that actually lend themselves to this kind of manic key bashing. Tom Jones, The Beatles, Stevie Wonder - it's all the same to Zygmunt, there's no reverence or respect, just a tune to be attacked with all the zeal of a starving man at a banquet.

 

I can't honestly say that 'Hammond Pop Party' is something I'm likely to return to again any time soon, but with a running time of a little over thirty minutes, I can honestly say I wouldn't have minded if it had gone on for a bit longer and it's not often I've made that claim to date.

Come Dancing: Ray McVay & His Orchestra - RCA Camden 1973

If the front cover doesn't say it all, then it certainly takes you over halfway there with the back cover blurb filling in any blanks. 'Come Dancing' is "an entertaining mixture of waltzes, fox-trots, quickstep, tango and foot tapping jive" is what it says, and Ray McVay and his Orchestra are a brass led, big band that specialise in the sort of jazzy swing dance sound that was popular in the 1930's and 1940's. 

Nothing wrong with that when you have the right players playing the right music, but 'Come Dancing' sidesteps logic and reason by offering up a random mix of old standards ('On The Street Where You Live', 'The Desert Song'), film soundtrack music ('Theme From A Summer Place', 'Theme From Exodus') and the odd song from a musical ('A Lot Of Livin' To Do') It's another mixed bag and the only unifying theme I can identify is the almost total unsuitability of all them for a big band dance makeover.

Because it's a very strange world where the morose 'Too Soon To Know' and 'Green Green Grass Of Home' could be deemed to have potential to cut a rug to, and true enough McVay and his band thrash and flail around like a cat in water throughout, forever looking for a beating dance heart to music that simply isn't there. Even when something is offered up on a plate like 'Rock Around The Clock', McVay piles on embellishment after fussy embellishment until the whole thing becomes too bloated to swing. Too bloated to do anything really except sag under the weight of it's own arrangements like an Christmas tree piled with tat from the Pound shop.

The back cover also tells me that "the scene is set for polished, musical entertainment that everyone can enjoy and appreciate".  Everyone except me it seems; all 'Come Dancing' and it's over egged racket does for me is give me a headache and a vague sense of regret that I'm not listening to something else. And lads, lads - did you really need to have such a tacky and suggestive cover? Why not go the whole hog and smear that mouthpiece with lipstick and add a trail of spittle from it to that woman's mouth too?

Hammond Sounds Relaxing: The Harry Stoneham Quartet - EMI 1974

Having made it quarter through my adventure in exploring charity shop vinyl, I think I can report a few unifying themes as standing out. Firstly, I've been wondering if there's scope for a whole separate blog or piece of work devoted to 'Charity Shop Vinyl With Blatantly Sexist Sleeves'. I'm sure there's potential for a thesis on that one - an album of easy listening decked out in a cover shot of a woman wearing not that much clothing striking a provocative pose to lure the punter in has been a common theme to date, not just in the albums I've featured but in the ones I've come across, pondered but haven't actually bought. The whole of Hallmark's Top Of the Pops series is just the tip of this sleazy iceberg, plenty of other examples abound.

To my mind though, 'Hammond Sounds Relaxing' has crossed a line of sorts - not only do we have a topless woman, on this one there's a bare nipple on display too. Not blatantly in your face I grant you, but it's there all the same, and the fact it is more covert somehow makes it all the worse. Dishonest even, but what makes it worse still is the look of borderline surprise and/or confusion on the woman's face that makes it look like the photographer stumbled across her in a private moment and took a quick snap without her consent. Worser stiller, this isn't a release on some obscure, low budget, moral free label looking to generate all the sales it can - this is EMI, a label who, in just a few years time, would be booting the Sex Pistols off it's roster because "EMI feels it is unable to promote this group's records in view of the adverse publicity generated over the past two months." So, it seems some comedy anarchy is a no no but blatant sexist exploitation is just fine and dandy. The seventies really were another country.

Secondly, I've come to appreciate the fact that the back cover notes that inevitably appear on these releases are often more entertaining than the music itself. Usually taking the form of a gushing hagiography hacking a silk purse out of a sow's ear for all it's worth, the text on the back of 'Hammond Sounds Relaxing' about quartet leader Harry Stoneham is a case in point:

"Harry describes himself as the biggest ligger in the world, by which he means that he is very idle given the chance: if he has nothing to do, he is most likely to do nothing! But he also has a lot of interests outside the world of music, and wishes he had more time for them - bird spotting, reading and building model aircraft. For all his considerable success as a musician, Harry says 'I'm still a frustrated actor at heart. It must be nice to escape from real life sometimes'. The other thing he would really love to be able to do is paint - preferably like Constable"
 
Well there we are then. You'd never get Van Morrison opening up like that on his albums.

As for the music itself, well 'Hammond Sounds Relaxing's tracklist is wall to wall Tin Pan Alley standards ('Cheek To Cheek', 'Stardust', Begin The Beguine', 'Like Someone In Love' etc.) played by a quarter of fairly renowned (it has to be said) British and Australian jazz musicians. Chris Karan (drums) and Pete Morgan (bass) are no slouches, but unfortunately, the end product is rather less than the sum of its parts, and any shortcomings it has I lay firmly at the feet of Harry Stoneham and his Hammond. Now, I don't have a problem with the Hammond per se, but like bagpipes and kettledrums, it's not high on my list of 'instruments to relax to' which, given the title of this album, presents me with a problem.

Imagine, if you will, 'Kind Of Blue' with Miles Davis' trumpet replaced by a Hammond organ and you'll be nearing the ball park of how this sounds. And not just replaced, but replaced, shoved upfront and mixed far too loud so that it dominates the whole soundscape. I don't know if this was a deliberate ploy by Stoneham just to show whose quartet this is, but its resulted in an album that perhaps would have been more honestly called 'Hammond Does Not Sound Relaxing At All'. Stoneham tries to play with kid gloves, but like a child trying to stage whisper at a funeral that they want to use the toilet, his attempts to dial it down only makes it all the more distracting.  I'm afraid all this would have all sat so much better with me if he'd  unplugged the thing and let the trio get on with it because, in the gaps between his playing, they sound like they're cooking with gas.