The Tony Williams Lifetime: Turn It Over

Based on the fact that I have just recently read a Lester Bangs article in which he quoted 'Right On!' by The Tony Williams Lifetime as an example of the enduring influence of the sonic template set out by The Velvet Underground's 'Sister Ray', I picked up this album at my local record store (Rebound Records, represent!) on Saturday for £13. Turn It Over, released on Verve in 1970, was the second LP by The Tony Williams Lifetime, a jazz trio comprising of Tony Williams (drums & Vox, ex-Miles Davis), Larry Young (organ, played on Bitches Brew) & John McLaughlin (guitar ex-Miles Davis). This jazz-rock all-star band was joined on Turn It Over by Jack Bruce, ex of Cream, on bass. Impressive stuff. Still, apart from Lester's reference -and the fact that the sleeve looks exactly the same as White Light/White Heat - nothing had prepared me for the furious, fuzzed-out distorto Velvets-go-jazz heavy rock sound presented on this thunderously brilliant LP.

...when I took 'Turn It Over' to the counter on saturday morning, the Record Store Guy played me a few minutes of the first track and I explained the whole Lester Bangs thing and we both sorta nodded, and he said something 'bout how the record possessed the same 'sonic density' as Sister Ray, which I thought was a pretty far-out thing to say, and I said how surprised I was about the super-loud, super dirty dirge-rock roaring from the speakers, having still expected it to be quite jazz fusion-y. Save a couple of tracks, this LP is not psychedelic, it isn't over-produced, fussy or 'colourful'. The vibes are largely is as black as the sleeve, all the instruments are mixed artlessly at skull-rattling volume, and all-in-all the sound palette owes way more to early Sabbath than it does Steely Dan. Rock wise, I guess the nearest thing would be heavy rock power-trios a la Blue Cheer or Vertigo Records bands like Warhorse (though lacking the production values of that sorta thang) and there are a couple of trippy, quieter tracks which sound like Syd-era Pink Floyd, all bubbling dubby-sound FX and cosmo-atmospherics. Jazz wise, I guess the nearest thing would be organ jazz trio stuff, or Miles Davis'  A Tribute To Jack Johnson, which McLaughlin played on anyway.

The LP is largely instrumental & 'live' sounding, levels bleeding all over the place, very lo-fi. Hammond, guitar, bass & drums. The hammond is permanently set to bad-acid creep-show evil. The guitar constantly screams feedback and fuzz. The bass is gut pummellingly loud. And the drums...well, the drumming on this record is really something else, and ultimately I guess what really sets the LP apart from Blue Cheer et al. I mean, I don't know nuffin' about 'technique' or 'chops' or whatever, but I know this is Proper Jazz Drumming, difficult, improvisational stuff...which in this case has then been mixed at maximum Fun House in-the-red volume. There's something awe-inspiring about having these intricate jazz fills and triplets blown up to mammoth heavy-rock size. This record would have been a great LP with solid, four-to-the-bar drumming, but the combination of Williams' max. volume swing, and the thick, under-produced Sister Ray 'sonic density' really makes for a sound which is all this band's own.

Pretty much the whole LP is freakish or weird or twisted in some regard. F’intance, the spooky spoken word passage of ‘A Famous Blues’ is kinda cheesy, but still manages to be mondo disturbo. Usually this sorta thang would be a ‘Turn off your mind, relax and float downstream’ sorta deal, like some benign Tim Leary ‘So You’ve Just Dropped Acid’ instruction manual. Instead you get some guy (Williams?) whispering threateningly over a bed of muted space-static about ‘murky corridors of your mind’ and ‘ the blinding truth,’ mesmerising listeners to ‘staaayyy…’. It’s like having Disney's Khan the serpent on lead vox. Then you have a second, feminine voice, a sorta beatniky late-night, too many coffees and cigarettes type voice, intoning the words ‘take me home’, like you’ve just scored with Marlene Dietrich…but the thing is, I think it's a dude (Williams?) doing the voice…but I’m sure it’s a dude playing the role of a woman, and it's menna be like this beatniky woman is being seduced by the whispering snake guy or whatever. Personally I think she should get the hell outta there, 'cos the guy sounds like bad news. The song then bursts into a demented soul-jazz organ workout, like a distorto Jimmy Smith.

I was talking to the Record Store Guy a couple of weeks back how sometimes an LP can be generally mis-represented, like the vocabulary used to describe focuses on the wrong things, and you can end up missing out on a great LP 'cos it doesn't sound quite your bag. I mentioned that I played Isaac Hayes's Walk On By whilst DJing recently and had a kid come up to me freakin' out 'cos he dug it so much, but had never bothered checking it out before 'cos people invariably describe it in terms of smooth, slick, 70s soul. This was the exact reaction I had upon hearing it for the first time:"...but...why didn't anybody just say it sounds like Axelrod or Funkadelic...". The Tony Williams Lifetime have suffered this fate, I think. It is not relevant to talk about this LP in terms of jazz-rock, or 'fusion'. If you like White Light/White Heat era Velvets, late 60s heavy prog rock or just filling your head with wild, freaky sounds, you'll find much to wrap your mind around here. Paul Fuzz (Listen to sound clips)