Sounds From the Outernational Hi-Fi

Gavin B. · 08-03-2013, 09:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lisnaholic

Bebo Best:-
At first run-through, I really liked the songs that you posted, though I´m not quite as enthusiastic as Miss P - I feel like they are missing a bit of exploratory jazz workout in the middle of them, as if Bebo or someone kept too tight a reign on the song structure. Still that´s just a first impression, so I still have some listening to do.

What I really enjoyed was reading about this obscure material that I´ve never heard of, and I was particularly impressed when you placed Bebo in the context of Italian culture since the Romans. That was very neatly done!

^ I also suspect that it wouldn´t hurt to lose album covers like these if he wants to be taken seriously as a composer - or is that part of the obscurist charm, I wonder ?

I think there's a certain amount of obscurantist irony going on with the album with the cheesecake album covers. It's wry comment on the sexy lounge and easy listening album cover art of the 50s and 60s. I can also understand how some people would get turned off by cartoonish caricatures of females.

I think most of Mr. Best's songs are tightly arranged which is technically "fake" jazz; or what some music critics are calling "Nu-jazz" with the misspelling as a code to indicate the fakery of the musical form. But I'm not surprised because the entire outernational music movement is built upon the idea of electronic enhancement of the music of traditional musical forms.

I can't find any live performances of the Super Lounge Orchestra on YouTube, which would allow me to assess their improvisational skills. However, I don't place that much of premium on improvisational skills in lounge and soundtrack music because nearly all of it is tightly arranged. I think of Bebo Best as being a counterpart to someone like Quincy Jones who definitely who wrote tight arrangements to his jazz big band compositions.