Search - Baden Powell :: Baden Powell & Friends

Don't waste your money on this, no matter how cheap it is!

John Downie | London, UK | 10/02/2006

(1 out of 5 stars)

"If you bought this double album in a shop you would realise from the tracklist that, despite the prominent picture of Baden Powell on the front, only 8 of the 27 tracks have anything to do with him. And although Baden Powell undoubtedly knew some of the other artists represented, it seems highly unlikely that all of them were actually friends of his.



Perhaps the compilers of this collection thought they could get away with their grossly misleading packaging by including several other guitarists, especially Joao Gilberto and Laurindo Almeida (who performs with Bud Shank). However, on several tracks even that remote connection with Baden Powell is missing.



In fact this album is a bizarre mixture of easy listening, light jazz and appallingly crass pseudo-latin big-band music, with a few solo tracks by Baden Powell thrown in. The "Prelude", "Adagio" and "Aria" are the usual suspects by Bach and Albinoni. While the Almeida/Shank tracks are acceptable, the Joao Gilberto contributions are invariably ruined either by a nasty bit of arranging or by the other performers (Astrud Gilberto and a very poor showing by Stan Getz on one track and a percussionist who sounds as if he is chopping bricks on another). Of the Baden Powell tracks themselves, perhaps five are worth listening to, but I cannot imagine that anybody who wants to listen to those five would be interested in anything else here.



In fact this compilation is such a grotesque mixture that I cannot imagine anybody, regardless of their musical tastes, who could bear to sit through either of the CDs. Even if they like some of it, they will hate the rest."