Van Morrisson: The Smooth Jazz Years

lightness maybe not, but just imagining street legal with a slightly lighter touch, more mellow middle-aged performances... idk.

some of infidels might fit in there

I guess... maybe Budokan too

there's hints of it in the religious material, "Precious Angel", "Ye Shall Be Changed", "You Changed My Life", but it's quite... preachy

New album with joey defrancesco fits in here. Amazing how his voice is still top-notch. And the songs groove like hell.
https://www.npr.org/2018/05/09/609763802/van-morrison-and-joey-defrancesco-make-a-lethal-addition-to-an-old-canon

love the loose, laid-back quality of the whooped overdubs or backing vocals on "cleaning windows," especially towards the end. it's a tiny detail of the recording but really lodges it in my brain. i'm HE-EPPY cleanin' windows!

I would go with "New Age" rather than "Smooth Jazz." IIRC, one of Rolling Stone's critics called this his "gospel" years. Maybe in spirit, but even that's stretching it - the spirituality behind these songs can be inchoate and inconsistent. (One of the hilarious bits I remember from Clinton Heylin's biography was how Van would practice his spiritual endeavors with a like-minded bandmate, and while they're sitting there meditating or some shit, Van would get angry and complain non-stop, as if the whole thing wasn't bringing him to nirvana or salvation fast enough.)

I love Van, but this era is very much an acquired taste. I don't agree with Greil Marcus, but I don't blame him for dumping on this entire stretch, because even when I grew to appreciate it, I found it to be wildly inconsistent compared to his '60s and '70s work.

Common One is very nearly a great album to me. The one problem is the last track, "When Heart Is Open," which is over 15 minutes long. "Summertime in England" earns its keep and change but "When Heart Is Open" is dull and bankrupt. For this track alone, I never bought the comparisons defenders made to Miles Davis's In a Silent Way - it's the most superficial similarity, and it only makes sense if you view Miles's album as background noise devoid of ideas. If you drop that track and slot in the outtake "Street Theory" from The Philosopher's Stone (I recommend placing it between "Satisfied" and "Spirit"), it's a great album in my book. Even after a net loss of 10 minutes, it still runs over 40.

Beautiful Vision goes deeper into New Age territory. It sounds like HALF of a great album: "Dweller on the Threshhold," "She Gives Me Religion," "Cleaning Windows" and "Vanlose Stairway" are excellent. "Celtic Ray" ain't bad but I prefer the original version (from the same sessions) - it's only available via bootlegs. The rest feels pretty disposable to me, especially the last 15 minutes beginning with "Aryan Mist."

Inarticulate Speech of the Heart goes in the trash. To be fair, "The Street Only Knew Your Name" is pretty good, but the original version cut in 1974 or '75 (see Philosopher's Stone) is better in every way. "Rave On John Donne" is also worthwhile but best heard on the live album that comes next - it's the one real keeper from Live at the Grand Opera House.

A Sense of Wonder also goes in the trash. Starts off great with "Tore Down à la Rimbaud," which is actually an old song but finally (re-)recorded and released. It's the only keeper. The outtake "Crazy Jane on God" would have been great, but they were forced to pull it due to legal issues with the Yeats estate - you can find it on The Philosopher's Stone.

A lot of people have made the case for No Guru etc etc. While it's a return in spirit to Astral Weeks, there's no mistaking the difference in sound. More importantly, the album's marred by some cranky shit where Van complains about imitators, the business, etc but fortunately most of that has been packed into the two worst cuts, "Thanks for the Information" and "Ivory Tower." If you drop those two, I think you have a great album. (Down to eight tracks, but it still runs over 40 minutes.)

Poetic Champions Compose seems to have a lot of fans but I found it tough to get into - there are long stretches that feel like the nadir of this era's New Age sound. I gave up on the instrumentals and the only tracks I listen to anymore are "Queen of the Slipstream," "I Forgot That Love Existed," "Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child" and "Did Ye Get Healed?" but they are definitely an acquired taste. "Did Ye Get Healed?" sounds like something they used to play in supermarkets, before grocery chains started playing actual songs.

Some people love the Chieftains and love Irish Heartbeat, but a lot of this sounds like a cornier strain of Irish folk that has never really appealed to me. "Raglan Road," "She Moved Through the Fair" and "My Lagan Love" are keepers though.

Some people think Avalon Sunset was a return to form and it was a pretty big pop hit. Van hasn't changed his approach so much as made it more palatable and accessible, so in some ways it's less interesting while retaining the same problems that made this era an acquired taste. "Whenever God Shines His Light" is a great track though. "Have I Told You Lately" is now a standard, familiar to many. It can be mucusy, but it can be good, YMMV. I think "I'm Tired Joey Boy," "When Will I Ever Learn to Live in God" and "Orangefield" are all keepers, and the other half is pleasant and harmless.

Enlightenment barely made an impression on me, but "Real Real Gone" is great. It's actually much better than the original version he cut ten years earlier.

It's not uncommon to find a fan who believe Hymns to the Silence is a masterpiece. "Be Thou My Vision" is actually pretty nice (albeit overdone, thanks to the Chieftains). One or two others like "Carrying a Torch" are just okay (Tom Jones actually had a hit with "Carrying a Torch"), but otherwise, the remaining 80+ minutes do nothing for me. FWIW, in Tom Hull's view, "it starts off with a streak of winning tunes leaving me no doubt that the 21-song 94:53 sprawl could be edited down to a pretty solid but still idiosyncratic A- single. I'd start by cutting the two songs with the Chieftains [including the one track I like, hah], then take a hard look at the gospel covers and the Dr. John co-write, although I can't swear they wouldn't grow on me."

And that probably does it - beginning with John Lee Hooker's revival and Too Long in Exile, Van shifted towards R&B and blues. ("I Cover the Waterfront" from one of Hooker's albums is pretty awesome. I was surprised to see it used prominently in what's been called the greatest episode of Homicide: Life on the Street.)

(I should say traditional or urban blues - he was still doing blues in the '80s, but not in a way that evokes Muddy, Hooker or any of those guys he's name-checked over the years.)

but "When Heart Is Open" is dull and bankrupt

bullshit

Let's not get cranky in the Van Morrison thread.

I don't mind "When Heart is Open", but I can equally see where someone would feel it wasn't what Van ought to be doing. If it hadn't been released, though, everyone would wonder what it was like and be clamouring for it.

Van Morrison (post-Into the Music) is one of those artists where I don't really expect to love more than two or three songs per record, but I admire his (musical, not medical) integrity. He had the stubbornness to make records his way in the 80s when everyone else in his position was bringing in sequencers and hair-metal guitar solos. On the six records I've heard, there's rarely an actual bad moment if you accept the parameters of what he's doing.

I do agree with Greil Marcus that The Healing Game (1997) is a stand-out "late" record, not especially bluesy, and I suggest that birdistheword check it out. I'm as wary of Van's output in the last 15 years or so as I am of Neil Young's.

Both Poetic Champions and No Guru are GREAT albums. Inarticulate Speech is amazing too, one of his best albums.

I don't mind "When Heart is Open", but I can equally see where someone would feel it wasn't what Van ought to be doing. If it hadn't been released, though, everyone would wonder what it was like and be clamouring for it.

I don't think anyone who likes the rest of the album (like me) would say he was going in the wrong direction. It's very much apiece with the other tracks, but all it does is establish a mood before drifting for 15 minutes. I don't think it even sustains itself as great ambient music, it's just dull. Maybe it goes over better as background sounds rather than active listening, but that's not my idea of great music.

I've actually heard a lot of Van's music after this period, and I agree The Healing Game is one of the better ones, but it's not one of my favorites. "Rough God Goes Riding," the title track, maybe "Sometimes We Cry" and the B-side "Celtic Spring" are all excellent though.

Choppin' Wood (the "original" version of Down the Road) is my favorite Van album of the last 30+ years, even though it doesn't have "Fast Car" (my favorite track from Down the Road). It used to be the only one I enjoyed from start-to-finish until Roll with the Punches, which wasn't really heralded by the press. I checked it out after Marcus raved about it and surprisingly I enjoyed all of it. (It's over an hour, but it doesn't feel overstuffed. It plays like a good, off-the-cuff concert for him and a few friends.) I went back and checked out No Plan B (which Tom Hull loves), Versatile and Keep It Simple which some fans swear is his real comeback, but they weren't all that exciting to me, just okay. I might give them another chance, but compared to Roll with the Punches they seemed lacking in spark.

I gave Inarticulate Speech many chances, but I have no reason to play it anymore for the reasons stated. I wish I could like the rest of it. Poetic Champions is a better album, but I've never been able to enjoy the whole thing, it's always been tough going.

Re: Heartbeat - "Raglan Road," "She Moved Through the Fair" and "My Lagan Love" are keepers though

Van is in excellent voice on these slower tunes. Carrickfergus is also great especially the "the sea is wide and I can't swim over" lines.

Dammit, these still slap at breakfast.