The Things You See - Allan Holdsworth/Gordon Beck

Jan

8

The Things You See - Allan Holdsworth/Gordon Beck

≡ Category: 1980s, Fusion, Reviews, Worth A Listen |
≅ Written by: Michael Kydonieus

WORTH A LISTEN

Rating:

Musicians are human beings like anyone else. They like to work with their friends, people they feel comfortable with. Obviously, this often works out. But sometimes, people who probably should have played together somehow never do.

For example, it would seem natural for saxophonist Michael Brecker and keyboard legend McCoy Tyner, both Philadelphia natives whose careers are closely aligned with John Coltrane’s, to hook up, but it took Jason Olaine, a booking agent with Yoshi’s in Oakland, to make it happen.

Unfortunately, it can work the other way, too. My guess is that Allan Holdsworth and Gordon Beck are drinking buddies, and they like to knock back a pint of ale together, but they have no business making records together. Don’t get me wrong — Gordon Beck isn’t a bad keyboard player, but he isn’t close to being on Holdsworth’s level. I’d much rather listen to Holdsworth overdub himself, the way he did on Velvet Darkness.

Beck is rather clunky on keyboards, his ideas aren’t that interesting, and he just ends up distracting from Holdsworth’s wizardly leads.

Still, The Things You See (on the JMS label) is an all too rare opportunity to hear Holdsworth on acoustic guitar. And there’s one major surprise: Holdsworth has fabulous phrasing as a singer, and shows great skill at expressively adjusting the timbre of his voice for dramatic purposes, as he demonstrates on his tune At The Edge. I’m not much of a fan of Holdsworth’s vocal music in general, but that’s probably because he hasn’t been able to find a singer that understands how to perform his music. When Holdsworth sings his tunes, they make all kinds of sense. Too bad his voice isn’t more powerful or he could sing them himself.

So, in the end, The Things You See has some fabulous soloing from Allan Holdsworth on acoustic guitar, provides insight into his songwriting, and gives a rare glimpse at Holdsworth as a singer, but that doesn’t make it a good album.

If you are Holdsworth fanatic, you may want to pick up The Things You See, which is only available on a Japanese pressing. Otherwise, I wouldn’t bother.