My review of King Crimson's Live in Vienna 2016, December 1, 2016 (UK Edition), today at All About Jazz.
Another year, another live King Crimson set? True, perhaps. But since reforming in a slightly shifting but conceptually constant form in 2013 to begin touring in the fall of the following year, the band's forward-looking, ever-growing repertoire of new music and revisitation of old music (from across its nearly half century career) made new again has been documented solely through live recordings. It's entirely appropriate, in fact, given the band's only remaining co-founder, guitarist/keyboardist Robert Fripp's longtime assertion that Crimson's studio albums are "love letters," its live recordings "hot dates."
Some, like the teasing taunt of 2015's vinyl length Live at the Orpheum (Panegyric) and 2016's three-CD/Blu Ray (and/or two-DVD) audio/video summation of the band circa 2015, Radical Action (to Unseat the Hold of Monkey Mind (Panegyric), have been formally mixed from live multi-track recordings.
But, in order to capture and release particularly fine live shows in shorter order, the band has also been alternating those more time-consuming productions with rawer, more direct and complete "warts and all" shows taken directly from the front of house soundboard mix, including Live in Toronto: Queen Elizabeth Theatre, November 20, 2015 (Panegyric) and 2017's Official Bootleg: Live in Chicago, June 28th, 2017 (DGM Live)). Add to that the EP-length Heroes (Panegyric, 2017), also culled from live recordings (including the titular David Bowie song from 1977, to which Fripp contributed what has become some truly classic guitar work), and the current Crimson has released five live recordings of varying lengths in just over three years.
Except that there was actually a sixth live album that documented another complete, particularly strong concert. Live in Vienna 2016 + Live in Tokyo 2015 (Panegyric) was only released in Japan in the fall of 2017: a three-CD set including the full December,1, 2016 Museumsquartier show on the first two discs, with the third containing a selection of songs from the group's 2015 tour of Japan. The international release of Live in Vienna (UK Edition) represents King Crimson's first document of a full show mixed from the multi-tracks rather than the front-of-house soundboard mix. But in addition to Vienna being an especially compelling show, the band has nixed the original third disc and replaced it with something far more appealing; well, truth be told, actually containing, amidst its six tracks, a single piece for which many (most) Crimson fans have been waiting ever since the group reformed. There's more to recommend the third disc as well, however; more about that later,
The foundational concepts of the current Crimson have, indeed, remained constant. Most notably, its three-drummer front-line--initially including Pat Mastelotto, Bill Rieflin (who also played keyboards alongside, on occasion, Fripp) and Gavin Harrison (responsible for the detailed drum arrangements)--was a rare and significant decision, one which has provided this Crimson lineup as close to orchestral potential as it has ever achieved. The back-line, too, has remained largely constant and given the band more instrumental potential than any of its previous incarnations. Joining Fripp in the back-line: Jakko M. Jakszyk, a superb guitarist who is also the group's lead singer; longtime (off and largely, since the 1980s, on) Crimson bassist/background singer, Tony Levin; and, back in the band for the first time in 41 years and four recordings with the band (documented in great detail on the recent Sailors' Tales 1970-1972 (Panegyric, 2017) box set), reed and woodwind multi-instrumentalist Mel Collins.
Continue reading here...
Bookmarks