Fifty Year Friday: December 1973
Yes: Tales From Topographic Oceans
Released on December 7, 1973, Yes’s sixth studio album, is a double LP set containing a single work composed of four sections inspired by a footnote in Paramahansa Yogananda‘s autobiography which discusses the classification content of Hindi scriptural writings into four categories of shastras: śruti, smriti, puranas, and tantras — or four bodies of knowledge. The album devotes a whole side of each LP to four concepts: 1) The knowledge of God and available truth, 2) Our comprehensive memories, feelings and thoughts — the Topographic Oceans of awareness and being, 3) Ancient, lost knowledge and culture, and 4) The Ritual of Life. The lyrics of the album, perhaps are worthy of study or further understanding, but I accept the words as being beyond my initial or even my likely eventual comprehension, and I am content to value them for their sound characteristics and overall contributions to the musical whole of the album.
That musical whole, is more arguably worthy of study, and provides a wealth of pure auditory enjoyment, and even though there is a fair share of meandering and excessive repetition, and though Bill Bruford has left to join KingCrimson, and Rick Whiteman, contributing to his final Yes album, has less of a compositional and performing role than ideal, there is much to like in the many individual musical episodes and the overall impact of the work. Howe’s guitar work is exceptional, and Wakeman, Alan White and Chris Squire provide an exceptional musical foundation for this immense, though somewhat imbalanced and imperfect, ambitious effort. The production quality is amazing, another fine effort by Eddy Offord, and the sonic brilliancy of the album is a major component of its enduring appeal.
Joe Pass: Virtuoso
Recorded in August of 1973 and released December of that year, Joe Pass’s Virtuoso is one of the best musical treatises on the electric guitar. Pass performs without any supporting musicians, deftly executing one jazz standard after another — as well as performing one original work as if exquisitely improvised on the spot. Providing intimacy and depth for each solo, Pass’s overall musical and technical approach set him apart from even his most notable contemporaries Most importantly, each track is similar to a short story or multi-page poem, with a distinct narrative identity and all the elements that make up a good theatrical piece. Pass’s handling of time is particularly remarkable as he goes beyond the use of traditional rubato into the realms of an elastic stretching of the tempo and beat, further contributing to the sense of someone spinning a good folktale or an off-the-cuff story. For example, on “My Old Flame” it is as if Pass is reflecting leisurely, over shared afternoon coffee or tea, on a past relationship — and ultimately going beyond simple musings by delivering a clear sense of some unspoken message or moral. The recording is amazing, allowing clarity of each individual note and the accompanying acoustics of the guitar and room to be radiantly presented. A must album for anyone that has even a borderline fondness for guitar.
Gong: Angels Egg
Released in early December of 1973, Angels Egg (no apostrophe in the title) is Gong’s fourth studio album and the second in the Radio Gnome Invisible Trilogy, continuing the narrative of the earlier Flying Teapot and adventuring into even greater musical exploration, spiced with an appealing (French and British mix of) whimsy and eccentricity. The album is cosmic and sometimes just plain fun, and shifts moods (as well as rhythms and textures) wildly, unpredictably, yet sensibly and coherently, covering the mundane and the galactic, the profound and the profane, and all with elite, unique musicianship.
zumpoems 