Actuality, there are only two cool people in Pink Floyd. Syd Barrett of course, and the other guy, who was their drummer, Nick Mason. He's cool because he produced classic Robert Wyatt albums as well as The Damned's second album. He's the kink in the well-oiled Pink Floyd machine. Nothing against Roger Waters and Dave Gilmour. Both good guys, but Mason I felt, investigated areas outside of the Pink Floyd world. When you hear a Waters or Gilmour solo album, you pretty know what you're getting. On the other hand, what in the hell is a Nick Mason solo album?
"Nick Mason's Fictitious Sports" is not really a solo album by Mason. He co-produced, co-engineered, played the drums and I have to imagine he picked up the recording cost bill, but in its essence, it's an album by Jazz composer and pianist Carla Bley. I'm not that familiar with Bley's music, except that her band is very much a big or enlarged jazz band. The one album I do know of is her work with Charlie Haden's Liberation Music Orchestra album which is excellent. Haden's work has a strong left political context, but here, Bley's lyrics tend to be more on the side of absurdity, which serves the over-all humor of Nick Mason's album.
The key reason why I bought this album is all due to Robert Wyatt. He is the lead singer on this disc, and anything that has his magnificent voice is worth having. Saying that, this is not really a Wyatt album, even though he has done many covers in his solo career, this still belongs to Bley. If pushed to the corner and my back against the wall I would describe the music as big band jazz arrangements but with pop music overtures. This is work that is very tightly arranged, and Wyatt, Mason and other great musicians that are in Bley's world, fits in like a great puzzle. Basically, Mason lent his name and reputation to this project for Carla Bley. Which again, makes him the coolest member of Pink Floyd.
One also must give credit to Michael Mantler, who has done music with Bley for years, and her husband, the bassist Steve Swallow. Dynamic horn section consisting of Gary Windo, Gary Valente, Howard Johnson and others. Sharp guitar work by the fantastic Chris Spedding. It's literally impossible for this group of musicians to make bad music together.
No comments:
Post a Comment