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Forever Freewheelin': Dylan as Improviser continued... As deeply informed by African-American blues and gospel music as Dylan is, in many ways he seems remote from jazz. The closest he ever came to the idiom was the jazz-and-poetry send-up "If Dogs Run Free," on 1970's New Morning. But the backing band on his first electric single, 1962's near-rockabilly "Mixed Up Confusion," was mostly jazz musicians; Dylan once claimed to have done sessions with Don Cherry and Billy Higgins from Ornette Coleman's free-jazz quartet; the cover of Billie Holiday's Lady in Satin is in plain view on the cover of Bringing It All Back Home. That's a clue: You might hear Holiday, in her final, cracked-voiced Lady in Satin phase, as a model for artful phrasing that transcends the limitations of the singer's pipes and touches you all the more for that reason. At certain times, potent ideas are in the air, and minds sensitive to cultural weather may follow parallel courses unawares. Had you access to Columbia's New York studios in 1966, you might have witnessed one of the label's stars improvising arrangements on the spot, coaxing a take out of the musicians when they've barely had a look at the material. A performance would jell as the tape rolled, something so electrifying it hardly matters the ending fell apart: Dylan, cutting "She's Your Lover Now" - or Miles Davis, recording Miles Smiles. Bob Dylan cooks his lyrics the same way sometimes: throws them together just before the tape rolls, as on much of Blonde on Blonde. He'd written "Tangled Up in Blue" months before recording the Blood on the Tracks version, but by one account, he came back from a vending-machine break during the session with one newly minted verse. But even where a text is set, his halting/fluid delivery can make the words sound like they're tumbling from his brain for the first time. One of many reasons to celebrate Dylan at 60 is that he's still out on the road defying pop's conventional wisdom: get out there and reproduce your hits as closely as possible. Any recent Dylan set list confirms he likes his '60s classics as much as the rest of us do, but any Dylan concert affirms that for him, performing oldies has nothing to do with nostalgia and everything to do with endless reinvention. That takes guts, smarts, and mental and physical energy - qualities he's never lacked, not even on the cusp of 60. Way to go. Happy birthday. |
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