One of the scariest phrases in the English language: Jazz Fusion. It fills people with abject terror, more for the fact that nobody knows what it is than a personal dislike of the genre. So let’s pretend I didn’t say it. Pretend instead I said: Stevie Wonder’s Superstition. That feels better, right? We’ll set the tone this way.
For those of you who don’t know, The London 60s music scene was filled with an unusually large quantity of world-class R&B singers and guitarists for such a small country’s big town, surprisingly so. The classic anecdote is that of the 3rd shelf R&B band, the Yardbirds. Their first guitarist was Eric Clapton who was soon replaced by Jeff Beck who was soon replaced by Jimmy Page who rejigged it to become the New Yardbirds then Led Zeppelin. You can’t make this shit up. And this was only 3 of a multitude of guitar gods but somehow, Jeff Beck was deemed the guitarists guitarist, he saw beyond the current and threw his net out far and wide. After the Yardbirds he set up his own band with Rod Stewart as the lead singer, and then, this. THIS!
This album was like nothing else in guitar-land and captured Jeff Beck in all his glory. He basically set up his stall and recorded his qualification – Bachelor of Guitar, minor in rock, major in the future of rock.
9 tracks, 3 covers, 2 of which are Stevie Wonder tracks and one the Beatles. Prepare to be mesmerised. Oh, do you remember Stevie Wonder’s Superstition? The guitarist on that track? Yep!