Saturday, June 25, 2011

Nathaneal Hale - Light Chaser/Purple Haze

Hear The Track Here


Like most musicians, I have a little stash of other people's songs that I play in my own rehearsal space, just for the practice and joy of actually playing a piece of music I like. Also like most musicians, I tend to have a few of the greats in that catalog, a couple of God's Own Works being notable amongst them. Now just in case you are wondering when Himself became a musician, I am not talking about the All Powerful, merely one of his most influential disciples Jimi Hendrix. While I may play Hendrix tunes (badly) in my own private room, I would never, ever inflict them on someone else.

It would be sacrilege, know what I mean. Blasphemy. (Ed: is if this whole paragraph weren't already soaked with such inflammable material). Nathanael Hale obviously cares not one whit about such things and takes up what has become The Man's signature tune; Purple Haze. However, lets save them silver bullets for later and have a butchers (Ed: Cockney rhyming slang. Butchers hook=look) at Light Chaser which is billed on Soundclick as Jazz:Lounge. OK who just shouted out 'oh yippee', and why don't they sound excited about the prospect? I personally like jazz, both as a listener and a player, and Light Chaser is exactly as billed although - for my money - it had a tendency to sound sequenced rather than played - or maybe that's just me. Nathanael is primarily a guitarist and he is on fine jazzy form here, although the sound quality left a bit to be desired.

Now that we've had time to erect the gallows, lets have a look at Purple Haze. Nervous readers may wish to look away now, this may not be pleasant. Released covers are to me essentially pointless because most people just copy the original with the smallest of changes. True, and lasting, covers add or enhance the original or show it in a different light. Much more to the point I would expect the musician taking on such a task to own the damn thing when they had finished. To be really fair, Nathanael scrapes by with the addition of some modern day shredding to accompany the extremely good (and faithful) copying of the original, but technical problems do dog it. Nonetheless, it shows that he can actually follow the Master's instructions... ;)

Interesting guitar interludes. Recommended on Purple Haze just for the craic.

No comments: