TONY WILLIAMS LIFETIME -Turn It Over.1st PRESS.MINT

	£		26
	$		34

THE TONY WILLIAMS LIFETIME

'TURN IT OVER'

ORIGINAL 1970 1ST PRESSING STEREO UK LP

UK POLYDOR LABEL - 2425-019 

MATRIX NUMBERS: (2425019 A//I / B//1 420)

A MINT/UNPLAYED COPY!!!

THE VERY RARE AND EXTREMLY COLLECTABLE 

1ST PRESS UK LP 'TURN IT OVER' BY THE TONY WILLIAMS LIFETIME.

THIS STEREO LP BEING THE BANDS

2ND ALBUM TO BE RELEASED IN THE UK,

THERE WERE NO MONO ISSUES.

This album has the most breathtakingly aggressive rock drumming ever recorded. Sure, John Bonham could really pound, and Keith Moon could whip up a fine mess of busy psychotic fills, but no one could attack the drums with the physical power and polyrythmic genius that Williams displays here.

His playing on "To Whom It May Concern" is like a pinpoint-precise cyclone: relentlessly driving but full of outside fills that he drops in lightning-fast like a skilled boxer. The album is full of extreme emotions and it feels like the band is constantly pushing things to the edge, but then that was Williams' intention, in an old interview with Newsweek he said that he was trying to see how much the audience could take, how far they could follow before the music got to be too much.

Some of the "rock" tricks sound really dated: "Vuelta Abajo" sounds like a soundtrack to a late-60's biker film, and what to make of McLaughlin's trippy narrative on "A Famous Blues"? ("Stay...in the black abyss of your head...searching the murky corridors of your mind." Like, wow, man!) 

Williams' awful vocals on "This Night This Song", really fit in, somehow!

Anyway, this is true "acid jazz", meaning jazz played like acid rock, full of feedback, extreme concepts, and outrageous energy and volume. It's also what jazz/rock fusion should have been since it melds the anarchic feel of rock with the virtuousity of jazz, instead of lapsing into feel-good background music. 

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, 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 Larry 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.

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!

Amazing is the best way to describe this dark, bizarre, but extraordinary faceted album. Certainly not for the "unhip", or faint hearted, this recording weaves through some interestingly uncharted waters. From Tony's vocal in "This Night This Song", John Mclaughlin's distorted guitar in "Right On", to his subtle chord accompanyment to Jobim's "Once I Loved", complete with Khalid Yasin (Larry Young) screeching Hammond organ.("Allah Be Praised", has some great Yasin (Young) moments!) I especially dig (to my wife's chagrin) cranking up Jack Bruce's out of key vocal in "One Word", which is spectacular.

A highly inventive, and original venture.

The better of the first two albums recorded by The Tony Williams Lifetime.

'Turn It Over, is a far more focused and powerful album than their debut album, 1969's Emergency!...'Turn it Over' is more rock-orientated and darker-hued, and one of the more intense pieces of early jazz-rock fusion around. In parts, it's like Jimi Hendrix's Band of Gypsys with much better chops. The temporary addition of ex-Cream member Jack Bruce on bass and vocals alongside stalwart guitarist John McLaughlin makes this something of a milestone of British progressive jazz. 

AN ESSENTIAL AVANT GARDE JAZZ/PROG ROCK GEM!!!

STRICTLEY GRADED!

THE RECORD IS IN MINT/UNPLAYED CONDITION

IT LOOKS CLEAN, WITH A BRIGHT SHEEN,

WITH NO MARKS. 

NEVER NEED TO UPGRADE!!!

THE LABELS ARE ALSO IN SUPERB CONDITION,

 THE RECORD COMES IN IT'S ORIGINAL POLYLINED PAPER INNER SLEEVE

IN NEAR MINT CONDITION.

THE LAMINATED SLEEVE IS IN NEAR MINT CONDITION

THE EDGES AND CORNERS ARE SHARP,

WITH NO SPLITTING TO THE SPINE,

 AND IT HAS ALSO BEEN LOOKED AFTER.

 A VERY RARE AND COLLECTABLE RECORD

 AND NOT OFTEN SEEN IN THIS CONDITION!!!

THANKS FOR LOOKING

PAYMENT BY PAYPAL

POSTAGE AND PACKING COST : £5.00

 RECORD SENT BY "SPECIAL DELIVERY" ROYAL MAIL.

THE REST OF THE WORLD EMAIL FOR SHIPPING COST