Turn It Over

Artist: The Tony Williams Lifetime
Label: Polygram Records
Category: Music

Average customer rating:

Format: Original recording remastered
Media: Audio CD
Number Of Discs: 1

UPC: 731453911826
EAN: 0731453911826
ASIN: B0000047GB

Release Date: 1997-10-28

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Listmania:

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Tracks:

To Whom It May Concern-Them
To Whom It May Concern-Us
This Night This Song
Big Nick
Right On
Once I Loved
Vuelto Abajo
A Famous Blues
Allah Be Praised
One Word

Similar Items:

Emergency!
Ego
Lifetime: The Collection
Saudades
Life Time

Customer Reviews:

Behold - A Terrible Beauty Is Loosed Upon The Landscape.......2006-07-20

The Tony Williams Lifetime debut effort, Emergency!, is a must have recording for any student of jazz-fusion, it's a spectacular CD that pretty much set the agenda for those who followed. Consider the line-up, Tony Williams, drum vunderkind and virtuoso, John McLaughlin, guitar prodigy, and Larry Young, an innovative organist with a particular sensibility and unique sound.

Turn It Over, the group's sophomore release, is not as consistently mesmerizing, but its highs are just as high. In addition to Williams, McLaughlin, and Young, Turn It Over features Jack Bruce who made a habit of showing up wherever really interesting things were happening, (witness Escalator Over The Hill). His bass is welcome, although his vocal on One Word certainly is not.

Whether Turn It Over is more rock-ish than Emergency! seems like a rather fine point since Williams and company formed Lifetime with the specific intent on destroying the wall between these two idioms. The raw power, fury, and sheer madness of at least half a dozen demons fuel this music, propelling it to a level of intensity that at times is simultaneously intolerable and irresistible.

To Whom It May Concern, (Them and Us), kicks it off in hard-nosed fashion, outstanding. This Night This Song is unfortunate, Williams just doesn't sing well enough to pull it off. Big Nick gets us back on the road, plenty of straight ahead interplay here. Right On is 1:49 of mania likely to blow off the top of your head.

Once I Loved, an odd twist on a lovely song, has Williams singing again, though this time he almost gets away with it. Vuelta Abajo may be the pick of the litter, the group has gelled wonderfully. A Famous Blues really is good for a laugh - let's all remember how stoned and groovy things were in 1970. Allah Be Praised is classic TWL, at times one almost forgets that Tony Williams might be the best jazz drummer ever. About One Word, the less said.

Yes TIO is a beastly baby, even a fleur du mal. Yes it's not as good as Emergency! But honestly, is there anybody else - anywhere - sufficiently talented to think this music up, much less technically adept enough to create it? Turn It Over - in your mind.

Take care: hot stuff!.......2006-03-22

Wonderful. Good music for good taster. This is a very good album with stellar playing; a little darker and much more rock-oriented than their debut, 1969's "Emergency". One of the more intense pieces of early jazz-rock/fusion. The album begins with "To Whom It May Concern - Them," and "To Whom It May Concern - Us", a very heavy instrumental workout. "Vuelta Abajo" is really furious and aggressive. I think this is the best song on the album.
If you like jazz-rock, you have to listen this cd.

Right ON !!!!.......2005-12-20

If you have a great sound system, turn up this track real loud and you will see that Mclaughlin is on fire from the opening seconds. He is playing like maha, Tony WIlliams is on fire as well. I feel like dancing crazy on this tune. Mclughlin is toying with the feedback on his guitar and it is soo sick.

I have read interviews from people like Santana, Bruce and others that said this was the scariest or greatst band at this time. Read the book " Go Ahead John", and read the story on this band. It has been said that none of their best suff made it on a disc/record. Right on is a glimpse of how hard these guys rocked. If you caught them live, then you problably caught lightning in a bottle.

Holdsworth was great in TWL as well but he didn't replace Mclaughlin. Ted Dunbar (ego) replaced Mclaughlin, who was making history with the Mahavishnu Orchestra.

You can buy Emergency, and Turn it over and be a little let down by the sound. What I am tryng to say is that when these guys hit the stage, it was on, I mean on. 1969-1970 there problably wasn't a better band on earth. I wish the powers that be could release some of their live stuff.

Tony & Larry Kick it Out..........2005-04-28

No weird analogies, comments etc. Just the feelings from hearing one unbelievable musician. Lifetime featuring Tony Williams and company rocks from start to finish. Yes there are dark moments, unusual singing and areas which stretch but this is music. There are some gashes etc. However, tunes like Big Nick and Vuelta Blues are worth the visit. Short, dynamic and explosive songs with Tony's driving continual rhythm machine. His untimely death was unfortunate because there will be never be another one and you would miss great playing if you don't go here. Was not able to get to see this phenomenal player in his prime due to failed promise by local club owner. Thus, this is the only way to hear a drummer who showed the rest of the jazz/rock world what Rhythm was supposed to sound and feel like. Sidebar. If you got to see Elvin Jones play live you can appreciate what Tony did on record. This is the next best thing! Gotta go get it again. Enjoy!

The K2, if not the Everest, of Jazz-Rock.......2004-12-20

One thing that struck me on first hearing this record--but which I haven't seen any commentator note, oddly enough--is how much it resembles the Velvet Underground's _White Light, White Heat_, recorded less than two years before. Even the covers look the same--the same white sans-serif type on black, the same Verve Records logo at the bottom. Certainly the sound of both records deserves comparison. "Right On," for example, has a definite Velvets feel, with McLaughlin's guitar suddenly roaring forth in full distortion as the volume shifts from the repeated drum-pattern. Hard not to think of the moment after Lou says "And then my mind split open" in the middle of "I Heard Her Call my Name"! Williams' odd singing style puts one in mind of Cale's narration of "The Gift," while Young's overloaded organ sound could fit in perfectly on "Sister Ray." Did Tony Williams check out the Velvets before he put this together? I know he was into all kinds of rock then (and did later do amazing stuff with Bill Laswell on PIL's _Album_/_CD_). Too bad he didn't ask Lou to join instead of Jack Bruce!

Even if Williams didn't have the second VU album as inspiration, he was definitely tuned to the ol' zeitgeist circa 1970. This album truly deserves the long-lost '70s epithet, "heavy, man." It's just about the closest that jazz-rock (not to be confused with the wind chimes and synth washes of "fusion") ever got to a full co-opting of rock idioms in the name of jazz improvisation. Anyone into "heavy" music of any sort from any time will love this record, especially people looking for a way into jazz from the rock or metal side of things. Buy it!

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