Joe Jackson Band
Afterlife

It happens to buy records and leave them on the shelf. It happens to take them for granted. And it happens, of course, to be wrong.

Then it happens to load your modern gadget that reads mp3s (I, too, can be young and trendy when I put my mind to it), and say to yourself: "well, let's put in some stuff I’ve barely listened to." A rare exercise of modesty, attention, and a good attitude towards listening.

And so here comes quite a bit of jazz, the latest wonderful Cohen, some little-known electric blues (at least by us, like Cummings, Bonamassa, etc...) into this ultra-light device, unimaginable in the eighties, and my beloved JJ: his least-listened-to live performance.

The live album taken for granted: "Afterlife."

And who knows why, then. It was the tour of "Vol. IV", the fourth album of J.J.'s quartet career, the so-called "guitar albums". Yes, because Joe Jackson, like other artists (but unlike other artists, not being a guitarist himself) alternated guitar moments with moments of pure "guitarless," producing albums where the piano at most played a few riffs or embellishments here and there, leaving most of the harmony to the guitar. And not just any guitar, made of roughly chopped chords...: a studied, original, thought-out, and maximally calibrated guitar, sure to delight any six-string lover.

It had been years since J.J. returned to this ground: in between many albums conceived for the piano and with the piano in mind, whether they were songs or works of a more classical or experimental nature.

And a return to the initial quartet was certainly not expected. Yet, here it is.

The studio album was decidedly beautiful, energetic, already very "live" itself, even if obviously perfect as all products without an audience must be, with an obvious and obligatory post-production. He was in top form, the other three in exceptional shape, but above all this handful of new songs that seemed to defy time (and also a bit of logic). In short, an album for twenty-year-olds when twenty-year-olds they no longer are. And indeed, not an album for today’s twenty-year-olds, but for the twenty-year-olds of then. Or, I like to think and hope, for twenty-year-olds forever.

And it was logical that a tour worthy of it would follow. Thus, the attitude of buying an original CD (for certain artists I always do so...) and leaving it comfortably relaxed and dormant on a shelf became more and more senseless.

Nothing could be more wrong: pure energy, vocal and instrumental form possibly even superior to that of the studio album, absolute perfection in every microsecond (it would be lovely to say again in every microgroove) of the album.

The rhythm section offers more than a moment of pure musical orgasm, the choice of the setlist (between the classic and the new) is nearly perfect, and the aftertaste that this timelessly delightful listening experience leaves is as persistent and enjoyable as that of a good Barbaresco.

So I must thank a sunny afternoon in the countryside, and a lot of underbrush to burn, a modern gadget with its headphones and an hour available for having rediscovered, or rather discovered, an exceptional concert, surely among the best that inhabit my personal ranking of that proof of the existence and musicality of god that live albums often are.