The Ultimate Jansch
05/08/1999
(5 out of 5 stars)
"This perhaps is one of the greatest folk recordings of all time.Armed only with an acoustic guitar,Jancsh demonstrates that the spare spaces achieved through the guitar and voice defies any time lines.Nowhere do you feel locked into 1971.Pink Moon by Nick Drake is the only other recording I can compare to this one.If you want to travel with Jansch down Rosemary Lane,be prepared for a moving experience."
The best
C. H Smith | Bowling Green, Kentucky United States | 07/22/2001
(5 out of 5 stars)
"This may well be my favorite album of recorded music, by anyone. By 1971 Jansch was recognized in Britain as their finest folk guitarist; as of that date he had put out six albums on his own and five with his group Pentangle in six years. Almost all of them had been smashing successes in the U.K., and some had even done well in the U.S. For this recording Bert chose a simple, intimate approach featuring just him and his guitar, and focussing on traditional folk, classical, and folk-blues material. The result was a spectacular display of the art of solo acoustic guitar and guitar accompaniment employing a range of interesting fingering devices and tunings, and always perfectly complementing the music. The traditional piece "Reynardine" is given a dramatic yet fairytale-like reading that fully brings out its dreamlike quality; the story in another traditional piece, "Sylvie," is told as much through the instrumental accompaniment as it is in words--a tale of wrenching, unrelenting anguish. The boozy "Nobody's Bar" takes the blues to a step beyond itself in the form of a mini-documentary on the world of the bottle; Corelli's "Alman" shows just how good Jansch is at picking up the essence of Baroque style counterpoint and adapting it to a more familiar emotional terrain. And so on. Jansch's style has sometimes been described as "Baroque blues" for the unique way he has integrated contrapuntal form and motion into his basically traditional roots, and this album gives the best view of this element of his art. To my mind, the only other album he has done that rivals it both in sheer creativity and--taste--is "Jack Orion.""
