TONY WILLIAMS LIFETIME

"The loudest stuff I ever heard in my life," recalled Herbie Hancock of a Tony Williams Lifetime concert that he attended in the fall of 1969. Knowing that he was probably risking his hearing later in life, he stayed for the entire show. "It was ... new. It was exciting and very arresting."

Miles Davis heard the trio perform their amped up set at a club in Harlem in the early winter. John McLaughlin had only been in the US for two weeks (he had come to New York specifically to join Tony Williams' Lifetime project) when he got a call from Miles asking if he would join him in the studio on February 18. This single day of recording would result in the July release of Miles' landmark fusion album, In a Silent Way.

Volume One (35:01) 1. "Emergency" (9:35) power drumming with loud, distorted electric guitar power chords open this one with Larry Young's organ providing the low and middle ground including all of the bass lines. John McLaughlin's guitar playing moves easily between runs that exude smoke and fire and those that evoke comfort and supplicating beauty, while his chord play in support are often jagged, angular, and confusing in their complex intention. Meanwhile, Larry Young gets some time to come out from his cave beneath the bridge (which is exactly when John gets his most ambigous: is he trying to be mean or just provocative?). While some of the sound is a bit muddied (especially in the higher end), the jamming is so focused, so tight, so intertwined. and then it just ends! Probably my favorite song on the album. (19/20) 2. "Beyond Games" (8:17) built over a blues progression, Tony uses his speaking voice to recite some pre-Gil Scott- Heron poetic social commentary. (He sounds so young--like the lead singer of the Brighter Side of Darkness: just sitting in his high school classroom wishing he could say his thoughts out loud. John's guitar is ominous in its support while Larry's organ (and bass line) is almost Timmy Thomas gospel-like. You can tell that this song was recorded on the same take as the previous one--two songs on the same tape continuously--as all of the sounds and levels are the exact same. after six minutes the repetitive four bar four-chord progression gets a little old--which is right when Tony returns to speaking his quotidian poetry advice. (17.5/20)

3. "Where" (12:10) a very-sparsely populated opening is where Tony chooses to start singing his philosophical musings. In the third minute John begins to solo cerebrally while Tony's drums provide steady yet-minimal support and Larry's organ is so quiet it's almost non-existent Then in the fifth minute John begins to go to a higher gear and Larry's right hand and Tony's prowess begin to show--but then all this is cut off at the five-minute mark for a quiet section in which Tony sings his ambigous mult-level questions. This then ends after which Tony's cymbal play and John's small repetive blues chords provide support for a two-minute organ solo. There is a very basic hard-bop motif shifted into in the ninth minute while Larry resumes soloing. This is not the fire and ice that I was expecting to hear from these practitioners of scorched-Earth tactics. (Nor was I expecting lyrics or singing.) (21.5/25)

4. "Vashkar" (4:59) the signatory song of this album, here we have the fiery interplay between drummer and guitarist with the organ providing the glue between them. Lots of stop and start, loud and soft alternations. Great skill that would be better if there was a more pleasing melodic hook. Another favorite. (9/10)

Volume Two (36:28) 5. "Via The Spectrum Road" (7:50) like southern blues swamp rock--and acoustic guitar and not one but two vocalists singing. John's blues-rock lead guitar is purposely placed in the background--sounds as if it's coming from a different room. The nuances are numerous and delightful. Too bad Larry is relegated to being pretty much the bass player. Sounds like something from the Sixties--especially John's raunchy guitar play. Larry's distant and sparse injections of organ chords have an other-worldly spacey feel to them and Tony's drumming is marvellous but overall this is not really something that a musician would really get into. I know this one is considered revolutionary, but it is far from my favorite. (13/15)

6. "Spectrum" (9:52) Wow! What a ride Tony, John and Larry take us on. There is no let-up or break to the break-neck speed that these musicians hurl through space and time--and Larry even gets some lead organ time despite having some very demanding bass lines to keep going. Quite a stunning (and exhausting) ten minutes of hard-bop-based power fusion. John's lead and rhythm play are both quite often abrasive--and unapologetically so as he keeps doing the irritating, angular things he just seemed to temper with bridges of more-classic and familiar (and softer, more melodic) riffs. A very impressive song. (18.25/20)

7. "Sangria For Three" (13:08) another barn-burner, this song has some very experimental passages (like the fifth minute and the 11th and 12th minutes) as well as some that are very hard-driving rock and others that are very Hendrix-like in their powerful blues-rock. This is my other top three song: I just love all of the shifts and turns, the high speed chases and the stuck-in-the-mud experimental passages, and the powerful Hendrix-like passages. (23.5/25)

8. "Something Spiritual" (5:38) not one of the timeless beauties that John would pump out with great regularity over the course of the rest of his career, more a testament to the challenging and repetitive work required to establish a spiritual practice and then keep it going. Great drumming beneath the very repetitious four chords played by John and Larry to mind-numbing nauseum. But I get it! (8.75/10)

Total time 71:29

I can see why this is such an important and, yes, seminal album--especially for the rise and notice of the fusion of jazz and rock 'n' roll musics, but it's really not a an album of great songs: ground-breaking and often great performances, but often so raw and under-developed, rarely enjoyable or "finished" feeling.

A-/five stars; a minor-masterpiece of genre-busting rock- and avant-infused jazz music that would open the doors for all other jazz-rock fusion ideas and bands to come flooding into the fold. Definitely one of THE landmark albums of the J-R Fusion movement.

An album that is as notable for luring guitar phenom Allan Holdsworth away from a pretty good gig with The Soft Machine as it is for being one of the legendary drummer's finest. Allan considered this the most pivotal collaboration of his career.

1. "Snake Oil" (6:30) opening with a truly funked up bass, the surprisingly-raunchy guitar from Allan Holdsworth enters with Tony's surprisingly straightforward drumming to establish a foundational framework within which the band members work in their little nuances of extras until 1:40 when Allan begins a guitar solo of subtly varied guitar chords based on the foundational flow. The band is very tight but, again, surprisingly stiff and unadventurous--until Alan Pasqua starts a clavinet solo around the three-minute mark. Thereafter one can hear Tony start to loosen up and fly around his drum kit beneath the rigid form of his bandmates. In the sixth minute, Allan launches on a surprisingly controlled and "slow" solo for about a minute, and then the song just slow fades! Wow! Kind of weird--and definitely unexpected! (8.75/10)

2. "Fred" (6:48) one of Allan's compositions, it is surprisingly melodic and smooth--especially Allan Pasqua's keyboard parts (which Allan matches with his soft guitar chords for the first two minutes. Tony's play is nice. Electric piano gets the first solo--a surprisingly extended two minute jaunt during which Tony's drum play just gets more and more dynamic. Allan finally enters as the soloist at 3:45--but it's Tony again who garners all my attention--even after 4:25 when Allan finally starts to cook, it's Tony that I am enjoying the most. How can a drummer be this "melodic"? Nice guitar solo finally ends about 5:37 whereupon we reenter the lush keyboard-and-guitar chord sequence of the opening. Nice tune. Great drum display! My favorite. (13.75/15)

3. "Proto-Cosmos" (4:02) a nice driving jazz-rock tune on which Tony once again shines despite more-than-adequate performances from his band mates--just nothing as extraordinary or dynamic as Tony's play. (8.875/10)

4. "Red Alert" (4:39) opening with a rock sound that sounds like the sound palette of Edgar Winter's "Frankenstein." At the end of the first minute bass player Tony Newton is the only one left carrying the song forward as everybody else clears out for a stupendous Allan Holdsworth solo. This is the first time on the album that Allan has displayed any of the fireworks that we heard on his last album prior to this one, The Soft Machine's Bundles. Alan Pasqua gets the next solo on his electric piano in the second half of the third minute. I love how both Holdsworth and Newton (as well as Williams) embellish their own "support" play beneath Pasqua--this is the first time the three have done this to this degree. (8.875/10)

5. "Wildlife" (5:22) a slow, melodic arrangement with upper register electric piano and electric guitar presenting and carrying the BOB JAMES-like melody forward from the start. Holdsworth takes his time taking the first solo slot--and never hits third gear, just maintains and supports the basic melody, pretty much. Pasqua's clavinet is a nice second keyboard and Newton's bass play is the most loose and satisfying that we've heard beneath Pasqua's cool electric piano solo in the fourth minute. I LOVE how the bass and drum play--both fairly straightforaward and sedate--give the feeling of pushing: giving more power and even trying to push the pace up a notch. Really cool feeling! Otherwise, just a nice song. My second favorite song. (9/10)

6. "Mr. Spock" (6:15) another song that seems to have more of a rock and pop orientation--at least until the speed is finally established at the one-minute mark. In the second minute, Alan Pasqua takes the first solo with silence from Mr. Holdsworth beneath--which makes Tony's play even more noticeable. Nice bass play from Mr. Newton. Even Tony's straightforward play is filled with such nuance and subtlety! Holdsworth puts in a decent solo in the fourth minute with Pasqua now completely dropping out. Cool idea! Tony's solo play in the second half of the fifth minute (beneath Holdsworth somewhat annoying distorted three-chord guitar play) feels a little bit "amateurish" for its showy-ness. (8.87510)

Total time 33:36

Overall this is a nice album of almost proto-Smooth Jazz on which Tony Williams shows us some of the amazing power he controls in his most basic drum play. The rest of the quartet are adequate in their play but rarely jaw-dropping. The songs are a little too formulaic with the way in which they are set up to harbor a succession of individual solos (except for "Fred").

B+/4.5 stars; a near-masterpiece of jazz-rock fusion.

This is a raucous and righteous fusion record. Sometimes frenetic sometimes sludgy. Over all of it, the non-stop, steamy, screamy singing by Linda "Tequila" Logan is a highlight. Her vocal value isn't what is pretty, but what is important. There is something fun and mischievous (possibly insane) in her meandering soulfulness. She reaches heights that are heavy with feeling. And it's a shame I can't find any background or current information about her at all on the Internet. Tony Williams' playing is expressive and explosive throughout. Here there's a pattering and peppering, and here there's a crashing on your head as you get thrown down the stairs. It's a dirty and streetwise vibe, but elegant in its precision. There is gospel, whirring jazz, and rock here of a deeper, darker kind. Even so, it sounds like they had fun playing, and even the liner notes have a kid-like quality to them. Punk bands like The Cramps and Boss Hog have ripped this heavy "out there" sound right off.

A good argument could be made that Jazz Rock Fusion began right here, when ace drummer Tony Williams, the backbone of the so-called Second Great Miles Davis Quintet, enlisted Larry Young and John McLaughlin for a plugged-in jazz power trio, charged with genuine power. The embryonic crossover was still discernibly jazz, configured around an unusual instrumental line-up of drums, guitar, and organ (no bass, no horns). But it was jazz played loud and electrified, with an abrasive edge unusual even in rock albums of the same era.

How rough is the recording? The entire twin-LP, with over 70-minutes of music, was finished in just two days, and sounds like it. The production isn't far removed from a crudely bootlegged live concert, but the raw vitality of the music itself can't be ignored...nor, unfortunately, can the awful '60s poetry, heard in "Beyond Games" and elsewhere ("You know everything is said...in the bed / And it shouldn't change...just 'cause you're wed!")

Concentrate instead on the white-hot performances surrounding those occasional spoken word digressions. The controlled fury of Williams' drumming would exert an undeniable influence on a generation of young rock percussionists (Michael Giles, Bill Bruford, etc.) The texture of Larry Young's electric organ is the aural equivalent of extra-coarse sandpaper. And no fan of John McLaughlin can afford to miss this set, which includes some of his most incendiary playing on record, approaching an almost Post-Punk level of abstraction in tracks like "Sangria For Three".

Maybe the emergency of the album's title was the inevitable crisis in the middle-1960's that saw a cross-fertilization of musical styles, with rockers looking to jazz for permission to break the rules, and fearless jazzers like Williams and Miles Davis drawn to the power and popularity of Rock 'n' Roll. Davis would of course take the hybrid style to a whole new level, but the epiphany of "Bitches Brew" would have been stillborn without the midwife of this album in attendance (after hearing it, Davis tried unsuccessfully to hire the Lifetime trio as his backing band). The song "Via the Spectrum Road" in particular functions as an unofficial prologue to the groovy Brew title "Miles Runs the Voodoo Down".

The album is primitive, no doubt. But it was fusions like this that eventually blossomed into the glorious Hydra called Progressive Rock, where no musical boundary was safe.

Miles wasn't the only cat pioneering fusion. Most notably was the late great jazz drummer Tony Williams, whose Lifetime band formed around him, organist Larry Young, and the up and coming John McLaughlin on guitar, cut two fantastic albums that helped pave the way. This is their masterwork, with Jack Bruce and his bass joining up, fresh out of Cream, to help them unleash an earthquake upon jazz and prog alike. This album just barnstorms, interconnecting tracks into a sonic force that never lets up. Everyone plays their respective instrument hard, fast, and excellently. It's hard to give special kudos to McLaughlin as usual, since Young and Williams play their hearts out, too. The whole first side stands as the better piece, but there's nary anything wrong with this LP. Highly recommended.

After Tony Williams met with John McLaughnin during the recording of Miles Davis' In A Silent Way, they teamed-up with Larry Young to record this ground-breaking jazz album. It's one of the first albums by jazz musicians where the aggression and psychedelic influences from contemporary rock were incorporated so extensively. At least much more so then Davis did on his 1969-1970 albums. John McLaughnin's style is instantly recognizable here and much more prominent and frantic then on his Davis contributions.

Previous reviewers have pointed to the muddy recording quality of this album, but this harsh and trebly "in your face sound" fits the music rather well. It doesn't sound all that different from Jimi Hendrix' recordings or an early Can album like Monster Movie and it's not difficult to see that it must have served as a huge inspiration for Germany's kraut rock movement of the early 70s.

The music is loose and improvised, sometimes revealing post-bop and free jazz roots, sometimes spacey, sometimes aggressive and chaotic, sometimes riff-based and jammy, sometimes doped and over-indulgent. It won't please you if you look for structure, composition and melody, but it is sure enjoyable for its uncompromising energy and unaffected directness. Some of the tracks have vocals that are very hazy and psychedelic, not unlike the early Soft Machine actually. I'd guess that some hallucinatory aids won't harm to enjoy it.

Emergency is a remarkable album that you should sure pick up if it crosses your path in a library, but it lacks the improvisational mastership and the emotional impact of Davis' contemporary recordings. It also can't offer the compositional quality of MO's later albums, and I believe the kraut rock movement and bands like Soft Machine have more engaging executions of this type of loose, psych-rock experimentation. In short, a ground-breaking album that got surpassed in execution by the bands that took inspiration from it. 3.5 stars.

Never one to give a musician credit just because he "played with Miles", I have to admit, however, that it's clear from this album that Tony Williams has got some chops. Most of these are great songs to either nod your head to absent-mindedly or listen intensely to what Williams, and sometimes Holdsworth, are doing.

This feels very minimalist to me, as it is clearly the Tony Williams show, featuring Holdsworth on cue for solos and rhythm, with the keys and bass often relegated to simple chugging along, if even playing at all. Fortunately, that's OK, because it helps Believe It to stand somewhat uniquely among the riff-assaults of much fusion at the time. It's tough to do minimalism while still rocking and keeping things interesting (thus ruling out punk, if that's what you were thinking!)

My favorites are Snake Oil, Fred and Mr. Spock, although the whole album fits the chill-yet-with-a-bite classification. Snake Oil is a great strutter, with a simple yet catchy bass intro, and toe-tapping melody (though it certainly gets repetitive after a while). Mr. Spock is probably my favorite, as it really pushes the tempo and has a great attitude to it--not to mention the highlight toward the end where Williams takes the solo with Holdsworth on rhythm. Great stuff!

I'm not as high on this as some due to the lack of virtuosic playing (sans Williams) and absence of creative songwriting in most places. Nothing about this album screams fantastic, but it's quite good, and a bonus is that not just proggers will likely dig it. Just a solid lineup of fusion rock songs, played very well, with a few truly memorable tunes thrown in there.

After great Tony Williams solo double debut, this album continues his progressive dark and heavy attack. Just look on the line -up, and you will agree - this is all-stars band with McLaughlin on guitar, Jack Bruce on bass, Larry Young on keys, besides of Williams himself.

From very first sound you will hear (and will feel) heaviness of Hammond passages and ecstatic drumming - first two compositions are Corea's, but sound much heavier than originals. Third song is psychedelic ballade with unusual vocals and heavy bass line.

At their best moments albums represents excellent energetic and heavy guitar/keyboards driven psychedelic progressive fusion. However vocals and some unfocused pieces are album's weak points.

I own 10-songs LP version, and sound quality is below average (never listened to CD version, possibly this problem was solved there). In whole - great album with some not so good moments. But if you like early Hammond/guitar led progressive fusion, dark and heavy, with doze of psychedelic, you need to listen this album for sure.

My rating - 3,5, rounded to 4.

After three great albums, Tony Williams released this one - not bad, but really strange one! First of all - he employed female vocalist there, with strong soul-jazzy voice. Album's mix is made with vocals in front of all the sound, so what you are listening is mostly vocal jazz-soul fusion there.

Singer's voice is no bad, but far from Julie Driscoll, who this album possibly targeted. But even bigger problem is stylistically her singing is hardly connected with music played by Tony' s team. I can't say the result is bad, but it's kind of too strange (or too experimental, depends on your taste).

If you will remove vocals, there are more interesting things - great drumming, unusual, but often interesting keyboards and very energetic and in fact brave electric experimental jazz-rock with strong r'n'b influences. Possibly, all album was strongly influenced by Brian Auger recent works.

Separate musical pieces are excellent, but in whole all the music with vocals over the top sounds weird. I still really can enjoy it, but this album is possibly Tony Williams weakest point. Not strange, the band was disbanded after release of this release, and Tony returned after some time with great New Lifetime.

Tony Williams is one of most respectable jazz fusion drummers, still from time when he played with Miles Davis. It's a bit pity, that besides other Miles jazz fusion cohort, as Chick Corea or John McLaughlin, Tony's later solo works stayed a bit in the shadow side.

This album ( and I think it is his best ever release) is great evidence, that Tony's solo works are of the same highest standard ( or sometimes even higher!).

Musicians team ( New Lifetime) is all great - Allan Holdsworth is showing his best guitar techniques, Alan Pasqua if not too much original plays funky and very competent. Tony Newton is mostly known as Motown session bassist, so rhythm section gave strong funky-jazz feeling to all music. But whenever Allan's guitar is so energetic and fills all space with great electric rock jams, all musical mix sounds as hot jazz-funk-rock fusion.

Looking from now, all this album sounds as excellent vintage fusion recordings of highest standard. Possibly, I would like to hear some more experimental moments there, but we're speaking about year 1975, so I believe this music was quite innovative at that time.

Must have album for any jazz fusion collection.Strong 4,5.