Jeff Beck - Performing This Week: Live At Ronnie Scott’s

Jazzy Jeff and the fresh licks

Moreso than a lesser master of fretboard and feedback such as Eric Clapton, Beck’s solos and passagework are constructed to integrate with the melodic intent of a given number of musicians, rather than reacting with high-velocity flash to underlying chord patterns. On this 2007 in-concert offering, he proves as capable of serenity as he does of severe dissonance on a journey down many familiar avenues of an ever-intriguing professional career.

The oldest track played is Beck’s Bolero, which, on this occasion, hinges on much the same arrangement as the post-Yardbirds B-side. Just as belligerently alive are Led Boots, Charles Mingus’ Goodbye Pork Pie Hat (as a medley with Brush With The Blues) a stop-start A Day In The Life and other selections reflective of the jazz-rock that first seized the fellow’s imagination in the mid-70s, skewering his disinclined standing as one of heavy rock’s boss guitarists. That this set contains hardly any new titles is irrelevant. In his sixties, Jeff continues to display eclecticism and unpredictability in compatible amounts.

5 stars 5 stars 5 stars 5 stars 5 stars

Eagle Rock | EAGCD 396

Reviewed by Alan Clayson
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