BLOW BY BLOW

Jeff Beck's most famous work, Blow by Blow, released in 1975, shows a mature Jeff Beck leaving his blues roots behind and focusing in his outstanding guitar show-offs not heard often by many. However as his guitar style matured, his writing skills seemed to just end up in funky jams in which there's pretty much zero variation, they stay as they are with an average funky rhythm generally backing-up Jeff's show-off; even though the band is capable of more (clearly shown in the longer tunes), Jeff just seemed to care for himself this time, not a totally bad thing mind you since this is a solo work after all.

Blow by Blow is a case where the guitar solos standout and take the lead in all of the compositions, and while the compositions are rather simple you care less since Jeff's guitar distracts you from that. However, stating that, I have no right to say that this album is on the heights from all those classic jazz jock albums as Where Have I Known You Before, Inner Mounting Flame, Hot Rats, etc, fom the composition side of things.

Blow by Blow stands as an excellent bag of stunning guitar solos full-filled with catchy funky/jazz rhythms, with solid bass, plenty of clavinet and electric piano, but nothing way too exciting or adventurous for the avid jazz rock/fusion fan. The highlights are, without hesitating, 'Scatterbrain', 'Cause We've Ended as Lovers' and 'Diamond Dust', the only three instrumentals on the album that don't have the simplistic funk style, quite on the contrary, they have really good arrangements, including George Martin's orchestral contribution.

Don't get me wrong, I love Jeff's guitar on this album and on his following, Wired, but due to his writing skills, this album doesn't deserve to be a classic Jazz Rock/Fusion album, however it does deserve to be a classic of guitar solos, and it's undoubtedly a solid funk-jazz album, and for that it gets the 4 stars. (mind you that if you want top-notch Jazz Rock/Fusion don't start with this one)

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