Performing This Week..Live at Ronnie Scott’s

Eagle Records www.eagle-rock.com

Make no mistake, though renowned as a guitar wielder, Jeff Beck is a singer. It’s just that he makes the guitar sing. And whine. And cry. And spit and rattle. There isn’t a player on the planet who can make this instrument sound so personal or intense. Beck doesn’t often dazzle the listener with speed, he doesn’t need to. What he does is select  tunes and make his guitar sing its way through them. At time during this live-in-London set, the tone and phrasing hop from playful to bitter to sardonic to snarling, via pleading and howling. It’s to the band’s credit that the backdrops mostly get the better end of Beck’s imagination.

Keyboardist Jason Rebello does have a Max Middleton touch and then some ; bass player Tal Wilkenfield has a steadiness and moodiness about her phrasing that does work with Jeff’s mercurial guitar runs and drummer Vinnie Colaiuta though overbusy on occasion does have the chops to make the changes and bridges work and get the swing factor rolling in when required. The joy of Beck himself is that he doesn’t play too much, he stays in control but takes chance after chance and pulls them off. Beck shows are events, he sometimes seems surprised himself at what noises are flying off the fretboard but his deadpan visage covers this up. He is in fact playing the room, trying things out.

I have met Jeff once, at the 100 Club at a BigTown Playboys album launch. Suddenly finding myself face to face with him on my way to the bar, I said hello and offered him a drink, sighing that it maybe wasn’t much of a reward for forty years’ listening but…he happily accepted a Bodington’s and a new Dave Berry CD I happened to have in my pocket. Beck is famous for his dislike of journalists (probably even those that play as well) but that’s his choice and fair enough. He’s one of those people you have to get to know, but likely won’t get the chance to….as is well known, he has a love of custom cars that may even exceed his love of playing music.

These live cuts are very varied and don’t outstay their welcome, which makes the album a better listen for non-guitarists than you might imagine. The strident blast of Jeff Beck Group vintage tune ‘Beck’s Bolero’ finds Vinnie on sparking staccato form. The caustic bitterness in delivery of Stevie Wonder composition ‘Cause We’ve Ended As Lovers’ has lost none of its bite and tenderness over the years since it lifted the ‘Blow By Blow’ set. ‘Behind the Veil’ has a skanking, loping presence and gives Beck lots of space to chug and trill his way through the number.

The Mingus homage ‘Goodbye Pork Pie Hat’ is blended into later composition ‘Brush With The Blues’ to great effect. Beck playing blues doesn’t ever lean him towards cliches or grandstanding, he’s in a different class, especially when using a slide. Jeff even tackles a Beatles tune here , and it’s a thousand miles from his previous take on Fab Four b-side ‘She’s A Woman’ in his Jan Hammer era. I leave you to get this album and hear it for yourself. And try to tell me that’s not ‘a singer’ at work !

Pete Sargeant      www.fairhearing.co.uk