Van Morrison With Georgie Fame & Friends* – How Long Has This Been Going On

As the end of the last century drew near, albums by some of the grandparents of Rock, Blues, Jazz and Country, were nothing short of stellar ... what many of these artists had in common, was that they had reached back deeply, with love and respect to some of their finest tunes, reworked them, restyled them and totally integrated these songs into a new bright sound that was almost one hundred and eighty degrees from the initial outing.

Such was the release of “How Long Has This Been Going On,” by Van Morrison, accompanied by the legendary Georgie Fame and a host of others admires of Van, and artists Van admired as well. And if that weren’t enough, Mose Allison of all people wrote the liner notes ... now, can it get any finer then to have a talent like that bestowing praise on you? “... He writes good songs. And he does it from a musician’s approach. I mean, there’s no show biz, there’s no outrageous acts or uniforms or costumes. He strictly just goes out there and plays.” Well those are fine words indeed, but it’s more then obvious that Mose Allison had not scene Van’s performance at “The Last Waltz,” nor had he been with me to see Van swinging from the curtains at the Fillmore in the late 1960’s, hair bleached white, looking for all the world like a tubby Marlena Detrick, but I’ll leave that to rest, and say that for the most part Mose is right on the money ... Van is a serious performer, who has a great passion for his music.

The date was May 3, 1995, the scene was the ultra hip Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club in London England, the line up included Ralph Salmins on Drums, Robin Aspland on Piano, Leo Green, Alan Skidmore and no less then Pee Wee Ellis on Saxophones, Alec Dankworth on Bass, Guy Barker on Trumpet, with Annie Ross laying down some sweet vocals with Georgie Fame, who also ripped across his Hammond B3 Organ [there is still nothing that brings more pleasure to my ears then a Hammond B3] ... the show was live, the music was a mixture of Jazz and Be-bop, and I wish for all the world that I could have been there.

Georgie Fame was responsible for pulling this together, and I want to give the man his due. Georgie came to fame with his group “Georgie Fame and The Blue Flames,” a top of the line rhythm and blues band, which was a splinter form another great R&B artist, Billy Fury. Georgie as had a couple of top ten hits, he was closely alined with Allen Price, of the Animals, and played bass with Bill Wyman’s [of The Rolling Stones] group, The Rhythm Kings. More impressively, he has worked extensively with Muddy Waters, Joan Armatrading, Eric Clapton, Gene Vincent and if that were not enough, he was the right hand man for Count Basie. But since I am discussing Van Morrison here, I should mention that in one way or another he as been associated with many of Van Morrison’s single and album releases ... so he is more then familiar with Van’s work.

As I said, Van steps out from behind the Rock / Blues microphone to lay down some splendid renditions of his older songs, along with some of his favorites by other artists, in the Jazz style ... and it is nothing short of a pleasure to hear. Even though it was all recorded live, one gets the idea that the importance of this show was on everyone’s mind and great care was taken when it came to the sound quality and the mixing of these tracks.

I’ve was exceedingly pleased with the results, it was all unlike anything I had expected. Though there had been nods by Van in the past for his love of Jazz, I must confess, I did not expect this release to have the power and swing that it does ...

... How long has this been going on? Not long enough for my ears.

Review by Jenell Kesler

De titel van deze cd, de klassieker "How long has this been going on" van Ira en George Gershwin, geeft al aan dat jazz het genre is van dit nieuwe album van Van Morrison. De live-opnamen werden op 3 mei 1995 in de club van Ronnie Scott in Londen. Behalve zanger/organist Georgie Fame zijn voortreffelijke jazzmusici te horen als trompettist Guy Barker (prachtige solo's op onder meer "Sack O'Woe", "Moondance" en "Don't worry about a thing"), bassist Alec Dankworth (ook een mooie solo op "Moondance") en saxofonist Pee Wee Ellis. Het merendeel van de veertien nummers swingt/is bluesy. Behalve "Moondance" zijn ook de openingstrack "I will be there", "All Saint's day" en "Heathrow shuffle" van de hand van Van Morrison zelf. Een subliem uitgevoerde ballad is "Who can I turn to?".