Andy Bey - Experience And Judgment

http://www.andy-bey.com

http://www.myspace.com/andybey





Origine du Groupe : North America

Style : Jazz , Soul

Sortie : 1974



By Flabbergast from http://flabbergasted-vibes.blogspot.com



Yes, this is one ugly album cover. But what's inside is as beautiful a record as you're likely to come across.



A long long time ago I promised a flood of music from Gary Bartz. I didn't deliver on that promise. What can I say, my life is a morass of unfulfilled potential and broken promises. At least,
that's how it seems some of the time.



Until I put on this and then everything is suddenly fine. Andy Bey is easily one of the most underrated figures in music. His work with Horace Silver and Gary Bartz especially is phenomenal. And
this album is, well, eternal. It's largely a laid-back affair, brimming with the echoes of cosmic soul in ways that aren't too different from a lot of other contemporary albums, but this one has
a certain fire and heart that just isn't very common. It begins with a slowed down take on his 'Celestial Blues' that he had already recorded with Bartz' NTU Troop. First time I heard this
version I didn't know how to react. I felt like a fly suspended in sweet funky amber. Followed by 'Experience', the most frantic and uptempo tune on the record, full of lyrics that would be
difficult for anybody but Andy to sing and make sound this cool in elongated melodic gospel shouts from the lotus seat. "Judgment", the other side of the coin, is slowly and heavier on the funk
with some wickedly-recorded wah-guitar sounding like the microphone was in the hallway during the session. Andy deserves more credit as a pianist than he usually gets but it must be said that
keys man Bill Fischer steals the show here. Acting as producer and also composer on some of the tunes, he definitely has a 'mark' of production here - but with his exquisite taste in analog synth
tones and the absolutely perfect mix, you won't hear me complaining about his production. His synth work and electric piano weave in and out of the music faster than an arcade old-school
centipede, there and gone halfway before your awareness has caught up. In trying to find some more info on this album on the All-Knowing Interwebs, I have seen this album compared to Gil
Scott-Heron in a few places. Which really makes no sense in terms of Gil's vision and gestalt.. Where there IS a similarity is between this album and Brian Jackson, Gil's co-conspirator. Now,
THAT makes sense to me.



Really really I mean it, not a bad song here. The scaled-down funk poetry of 'Hibiscus' hits all my buttons in the right place, perfect in every way of composition, lyric, execution, tonalities,
textures, production. A heavily spiritual mind-expanding vibration just billows forth from your stereo speakers (or, um, iPod earbuds, I guess) to envelop you. "You Should've Have Seen The Way"
is easily the funniest song about meditation I've ever come across. Granted, that makes it kind of a big fish in a small pool, but still... Story of guy taking a friend's advice by trying to
clear his mind and find his way through meditation, but he just can't stop thinking about making love to a woman. Deep, metaphysical, sensual as hell. For all the buddhist vibe on this album it's
good to know Bey and company can keep it real. "Tune Up" is a more serious tune on a similar wavelength, one of my friend TY's favorite tracks on this. More lyrics that would sound weird from
anyone but Andy Bey, "like hypnotizing yourself up to a certain point," it just kind of works on you and achieves in the listener an analog of what he's singing about.



So far there is nothing remotely commercial about whats been presented here (jazz purists be damned, this stuff is too obscure and deep to be selling out to anyone). Then we should be all the
more surprised by the next tune, a ballad lifted from Neil Sedaka. That's right - Neil fucking Sedaka! And he just kills us with it. It becomes a love sonnet sung from across the veil of
mortality, sung from a dead man to his widow. Granted all that was already in the lyrics but goddamn if Andy Bey doesn't make it all come together and work on this album. By now we are 3/4
through the album and the remainder is pretty low-key and mellow. Nothing to grab you like what's already come before but just enough going on to keep you engaged, going out on a wonderfully
optimistic and sensual mindsex epic of "The Power of My Mind".



It's always weird to stop and think about how friends are brought together out of seemingly random occurrences, some drifting apart, some always there, some coming back like cycles of the moon.
And when I ask myself why it took me so long to post this record, because it had been on my 'short list' for about a year now, I think it must have to do with that elusive ephemeral thing called
friendship. I remembered it, suddenly, and sent it to someone who I think may have needed it right then. And a few days later we were having an intense conversation that ostensibly had nothing to
do with this album but yet also had everything to do with this album. And that is one of the great qualities of "Experience and Judgment" - although you can call it 'soul jazz' or 'spiritual
jazz', it is of an earthly sort of cosmic consciousness, one imbued with the substance of day to day living and struggle, that keeps its lyrics even at their most abstract from flying untethered
into the blinding light of oneness, instead staying in the air for a while to light our way as we listen. I can't recommend this album enough.



p.s. the HDCD mastering is a nice touch. Several digital players can recognize the coding and provide the up-sampling, leave a note if you want to know more.





Recorded at Regent Studios, NY



Andy Bey - Vocals, Acoustic Piano

Buddy Williams, Jimmy Young - drums

Wilbur Bascomb - Bass

William Fischer - Electric Piano, Organ, Harpsichord, Synthesizer, Percussion

Electric Bass - Wilbur Bascomb

George Davis - guitar (Track 2 only)

Richard Resnicoff - guitar

Engineer - Bob Liftin

Guitar - George Davis (2) , Richard Resnicoff (tracks: 2, 3, 8, 9)

Selwart Clarke - Violen, viola



Produced by by William Fischer





Tracklist :

1 Celestial Blues 3:24

2 Experience 2:57

3 Judgment 2:58

4 I Know This Love Can't Be Wrong 4:22

5 Hibiscus 4:39

6 You Should've Seen The Way 2:31

7 Tune Up 4:11

8 Rosemary Blue 3:24

9 Being Uptight 3:05

10 A Place Where Love Is 4:38

11 Trust Us To Find The Way 2:39

12 The Power Of My Mind 2:55