691 Tom Waits - The Heart of Saturday Night (1974)

 691 Tom Waits - The Heart of Saturday Night (1974)

Studio Album - Vocal Jazz



About the Act:

Tom Waits is an American Blues/Jazz/Experimental singer/songwriter/musician. 

He started out as Jazz and morphed into more blues/folk with some decided "experimental" elements. He has created a kind of hobo/beat poet persona. He has been incredibly successful worldwide. He has also worked as an actor. Since his first album in 1973, he has had 16 more.

About the Album:

This was his second album.

My History with this Album:

None

Review:

Some notable critics didn't like this album, saying it was too maudlin or sentimental. Arguably the most influential music critic ever is Robert Christgau (no, not me, shockingly), and he called it "the spindrift dirge of the honky-tonk beatnik night", which frankly I don't understand, but it does not sound positive. Well, I am not a notable critic (these reviews rarely get more than 5 reads. the highest number was 17), but I liked it.

It's jazz, right, jazz of a kind of beatnik kind, one of the songs is inspired by Jack Karouak, and actually I think most of them have that kind of feel, the feel of smoky bars in downtown New York, where radical politics are discussed by intellectuals who think they are "just an ordinary Joe". You could say there are blues and folk elements in here, and I guess that's true also, I would have described at least one track as "Honky-Tonk" or "Boogie-Woogie", the piano is tinkly, the bass is upright and the drummer uses brushes, and the singer wears a hat and smokes a cigarette, and opens a window into the nightlife, singing about regret and missed opportunities, and that sort of thing.

Actually, there was a tension here for me, the words are mostly of the decidedly melancholy bent, but the music, being good jazzy stuff, gave me a lift in my heart, a small nugget of joy, so the final effect was bittersweet. My favourite track is Diamonds on my Windshield, which is backed just by drums and bass (but not "drum n bass"), and is poetic in its imagery (the diamonds are raindrops). I did find it sentimental, but maybe it's the lens of years that makes this more acceptable, it feels like it belongs in the 50s, the 60s at latest, and actually at times reminds me of Frank Sinatra. the music is well-done, and enjoyable, and the writing is witty. The ideas may be somewhat cliched, but the lyrics are not so much, and... yeah... 

I liked it.

8/10


Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/2fnWxy7UoIazBiewjgchvm

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=the+heart+of+saturday+night+tom+waits+full+album

Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Heart_of_Saturday_Night



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