Search - Hot Tuna :: Yellow Fever

Classic

William R. Nicholas | Mahwah, NJ USA | 01/16/2010

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Electric blues just does not get any better than this. Jorma Kaukonen and Jack Cassidy are top musicians, and when top musicans dig there heels deep into tradtional blues--real blues--absolutle magic happens.



Nowhere more so than Yellow Fever. This album takes traditional blues and plays it--LOUD. For lesser musicans, the 12-bar gold standard becomes an exercize in trying to sound bluesy, shouting "I got the blues, mama and freeze dried guitar licks.



But these two are such good improvisors, they open the space. Listen to their work on the first standard, "Baby Where You Want Me To Go." Jorma's playing is pure blues but with the fluidity of jazz. He uses the standard licks at times, but only as touchstones to sail through the I IV V changes. His playing has the immdeiacy of talking, shouting, laughing, having great sex or being at the party of the decade.



Cassidy is even more interesting. He may have been the rock eras best improvisor on bass--he does not, at least here, set patterns. And he does not use riffs. He employs scales, running niblely, stopping, grinding out all each note offers. He may not be the most disciplined player, but his invention in incredible, surpased only by McCartney and matched by few others.



But able as these players are, they are aged, cured pickled and wrapped in pure blues. They don't have to affect the music.



They exude it"