Review: Beyond Words: Instrumental by Van Morrison.

Van Morrison will be celebrating his 78^th birthday in a few days’ time, but the Celtic soul brother is showing no sign of slowing down. Van has just created a new label called Orangefield Records for the purpose of releasing archive recordings from his long career. The first release on the new label is Beyond Words: Instrumental. It is a compilation of seventeen previously unreleased instrumental tracks from the 1970s, 80s, 90s & 2000s. It is only available on CD via Van’s own website. My copy arrived on Friday 25^th August, the day of release, and I have been playing it ever since. It is a most enjoyable album indeed.  I’m guessing the first three tracks Beyond Words, Jammin’ With Eddie & Driving On A Country Road would have been recorded in the early 70s when Van was living in the Bay area of California. The other musicians might have known each other from playing in Jesse Colin Young’s band. 

Bass player David Hayes has played live with Van more times than any other musician and appears on all but two of the tracks on this album. The title track Beyond Words is well named because Van seeks to go beyond words and into the pure emotional abstraction of guttural noises, happily scatting away and improvising to his hearts content, with lots of da, da, das, oohs and aarhs. It reminds me of the live version of Listen To The Lion. Jammin’ With Eddie refers to the guitar player Eddie Ottenstein. On this track and Driving On A Country Road Van on acoustic guitar trades licks with Eddie on electric to great effect. Van plays alto sax on the following very rhythmical danceable track called Breadwinner. Jim Rothermel plays tenor sax, James Trumbo is on keyboards and Dahaud Shaar features on drums. Some of the musicians were members of Van’s great Caledonia Soul Orchestra so I think this track must date from that period.

David Hayes, Van.

After the demise of the Caledonia Soul Orchestra Van assembled a small four-piece band of himself, Pete Wingfield, Jerome Rimson & Peter Van Hooke, so I’m guessing that Cool For Cats and Parisian Walkabout would date from about 1974. On Cool For Cats Van shows his skill on harmonica and Parisian Walkabout has Van on alto sax and Pete excelling himself on piano. The great Mick Green plays guitar on So Complicated and the traditional folk tune Kerry Dancing which is jazzed up by Van. Martin Winning appears on tenor sax and Bobby Irwin on drums. Jef Labes piano playing and string arrangements graced several of Van’s albums in the 70’s & 80s and Jeff appears on three wonderful tracks on this album, All Saints Beneficial, Celtic Voices and Mountains, Fields, Rivers & Streams. I also love the contribution of harpist Nadine Cox on two of these tracks. Nadine & Jef both played on Van’s album No Guru, No Method, No Teacher so I think these tracks must date from that era. 

Pee Wee.

My favourite track of all on this album is The Street which features the unmistakeable tenor sax sound of the late great Pee Wee Ellis. Another aspect of this piece is the ethereal backing vocals of Stephanie & Mihr Un Nisa Douglass. I have also always enjoyed the ambient, meditative sound of the keyboards, trumpet and synthesiser playing of Mark Isham on Van’s albums between 1979 and 1985. Mark plays on this track and three others Far North, Time To Get Ready and Song Of Home. I think any of these tracks would have fitted perfectly into Van’s albums of the 80s and early 90s. Before I had heard this album I thought Far North might be an alternative take of Scandinavia from the Beautiful Vision album. It isn’t, but my guess wasn’t that far wrong. They both have an Autumnal mellow quality, perfect for a Sunday afternoon in late August.

Neil Drinkwater plays keyboards on 12 Bar Celtic and Martin Drover is on trumpet with Steve Pearce bass and Roy Jones drums, so I think this track must be from the late 1980s. The final track is Greenwood Tree where Van is joined by his old friends from The Chieftains the much-missed Derek Bell and Paddy Moloney on harp and whistle. A joyful tune to bring this most enjoyable album to a close. If Van has more music of this quality in the archive, then I am certainly looking forward to hearing future releases from Orangefield Records.