Velvet Darkness - Allan Holdsworth

Mar

22

Velvet Darkness - Allan Holdsworth

≡ Category: 1970s, Essential, Fusion, Jazz Funk, Reviews |
≅ Written by: Michael Kydonieus

JAZZBO NOTES ESSENTIAL RECORDING

Rating:

Allan Holdsworth doesn’t really want you to buy this release.

Creed Taylor, owner of CTI records and an infamous tightwad, recorded the rehearsals and decided they were good enough to release even though Holdsworth’s fellow band members were obviously still learning the tunes, and the overall recording quality was shoddy. To add insult to injury, Holdsworth didn’t get any royalties for this release. He successfully sued Creed Taylor to stop him from pressing the record. Since then, Velvet Darkness has been bootlegged repeatedly, mostly in Japan. Holdsworth has yet to make a cent from any of it.

Now, I would certainly understand if you wanted to honor Holdsworth’s wishes and not buy this release (yet another bootleg from Japan). The thing is, this music needs to be heard. Despite the conditions it was recorded under, it’s absolutely terrific.

For one thing, this is the only opportunity you’ll have to hear Holdsworth play violin (his first instrument, I believe). His sound is raw, but his musical intelligence is intact. Secondly, this is a rare opportunity to hear Holdsworth on solo acoustic guitar. The results are unexpectedly tender, lovely and fierce, all at the same time. Thirdly, this is one of the last times Holdsworth would play in a genre setting. To hear Holdsworth soloing over funk riffs is worth the price of the cd all by itself! It’s instructive to hear Alan Pasqua’s keyboard solo over a seemingly insane, impossible-to-solo-over chord sequence, and then to hear Holdsworth’s solo make it sound natural.

Besides, I liked it when Holdsworth sounded like a human being instead of a machine. His later albums are technically astonishing, but I can’t connect to them emotionally the way I could to his work with Bruford (One Of a Kind, Feels Good to Me) or the UK debut or his work on Tony Williams’ Believe It, all of which are ESSENTIAL if you are a big fan of Holdsworth’s guitar playing (as opposed to his synth axe playing).

So, basically what I’m telling you is, hold your nose and buy the CD.