Axis: Bold as Love - Jimi Hendrix

In the Greenwood Memorial Cemetery in Seattle , is buried the body of a man who died a tragic death at the tender age of 27 . A man who lived and died by his own rules and when it came to music there were a few things he changed there as well. This man was born Johnny Allen Hendrix and later came to be known as     Jimi Hendrix . More superlatives have been deservingly bestowed on him than any other musician. He lived by the saying ,

’’You have to

you are worth anything... ’’

This has been strikingly fitting in his case . Jimi Hendrix is the artist most successful after death with well over 300 albums released since he passed.These include a flood of albums - everything from old jams to live recordings to unreleased work . Songs that the R&B radio stations kept on ignoring inspite of their huge white audience , were soon to be deemed as classics .

In his short life Jimi rose to levels of music which were never known to exist. He grabbed the established laws of music by their neck and hammered them into a completely   new and nascent mould .He achieved a position where his fans didn’t just love him ....they worshipped him. Over the years the Jimi Hendrix style of guitar playing   remains ’’ often imitated , sometimes mastered but always unmatched’’ .

Jimi , a self-taught guitarist started his career playing with people like Little Richard , Isley Brothers , Impressions , Sam Cooke and the Valentinos, and King Curtis .But these were not what he was looking for . Soon he moved to New York and formed Jimmy James and the Blue Flames . This is where he elected to sing for the first time . One night when the band was playing at Cafe Wha? , Jimi was spotted by former Animals bassist Chas Chandler . He invited Jimi to London . He did so ....pretty soon in 1966 , and it didn’t take him long to spellbind England . Stardom followed him soon after an impromptu jam with Cream .

The Jimi Hendrix Experience was hastily formed on October 6, 1966 featuring the man himself and Mitch Michell on drums and bassist Noel Redding .The string of club engagements that followed attracted Pop’s aristocracy including Eric Clapton and Doors frontman Pete Townshend . The trio released their first single, the understated, resonant Hey Joe. Its UK Top 10 placing encouraged a truly dynamic follow-up in Purple Haze. The latter was memorable for Hendrix’s guitar pyrotechnics and a lyric that incorporated the artist’s classic line: Scuse me while I kiss the sky .The band went on giving one exceptional live show after another which were violent and vigorous in nature . Hendrix used the guitar as a physical appendage. He played his instrument behind his back, between his legs or, in simulated sexual ecstasy, on the floor . Somewhere during this phase he did the unforgettable at the Monterey Pop Festival . The performance was a musical and visual feast, culminating in a sequence that saw him playing the guitar with his teeth, and then burning the instrument with lighter fuel.

Jimi’s lifetime could see only three albums of the band released .Which were Are you Experienced , Axis : Bold as love and Electric Ladyland . This review is a humble attempt to saying a few things about Axis:Bold as Love .

Love was to be the axis of the new galactic order Jimi envisioned, with his music serving as the otherworldly vehicle designed to take us there . The album was released in 1967 , and is a collection of blues rock , psychedelic , acid and metal numbers .Apparently there is a ’’180g vinyl pressing’’ format of the album that has got better bass kicks than the cd .Unfortunately I have never got hold of that so cant say anything about it , I have the cd and think its pretty good . The album is a more sophisticated and lyrics oriented effort and it solidified their international stardom .Soul and R&B influences are more prominent here than on his debut, though psychedelic experimentalism ran rampant on If 6 Was 9 where Jimi plays the flute in a progressive manner akin to his style of music . This track also portays the ideas that Jimi envisaged about his life ....

So let me live my life the way I want to....

Little Wing probably captures Hendrix at his most delicate, and perhaps his most personal mood .This is arguably the best song of the album and the mellowest at that . Tracks like Spanish Castle Magic , Up From the Skies , You Got Me Floatin’   , and Castles Made of Sand all had funky grooves that gave the spiraling guitars and crunchy rhythm section a much-needed buoyancy . Redding’s clean, uncluttered basslines provided the backbone to Hendrix’s improvisations, while Mitchell’s drumming, as instinctive as his leader’s guitarwork, was a perfect foil . This album revealed a new lyrical capability, notably in the title track and the jazz-influenced Up From The Skies With tracks like One Rainy Wish Jimi showed himself capable of creating gently textured songs of poetry that were no less powerful and compelling than the more jamming tune. Axis covers a nearly cosmic spectrum of sounds, violating musical conventions, and defying what was once thought possible in the realm of the electric guitar and recorded music. It still has one of the all-time best endings of any album, with the title track Bold As Love closing out the record in a sweeping climax .

Axis :Bold as Love is a complete album conveying   emotions ranging from romantic inhibitions to political and personal indignation .In this album jazz meets blues meets great guitar riffs .

Although Jimi was raised to the status of a rock god, he did a hell of a lot more than simply rock . Jimi really expanded the possibilities of black music, paving the way for the heavy funk explorations of Miles Davis, Curtis Mayfield, Funkadelic, and others.

A man who believed ’’Craziness is like heaven.....’’ probably had   eons of music left in him when he died . And before I end here’s something for the goosebumps .The night before his death he was working on a new song called The Story of Life and the words went something like.

Until we meet again...’’