The Jeff Beck Group
Jeff Beck Group

"Jeff Beck Group" is the fourth album of the musical group "The Jeff Beck Group" second edition (the one without Rod Stewart sic!), released in 1972, which does not entirely follow the line of the previous "Rough and Ready" more funky and aggressive to listen to.
Now, in fact, the sounds are more delicate (or sweetened?) with more emphasis on "cleanliness" and sonic "detail" rather than on guitar-driven power rock.

This album contains expressive, timbral, and tonal gems that fully represent our playing and sound which, combined with the effectiveness of his pastoral lyricism soaked in slide and bottleneck will pave the way for his more delicate creations in the years to come.
The album is sprinkled here and there with feedback that reminds us of his experiments with the Yardbirds, and it is worth noting a rather unusual use for Beck of full chords in a funky-jazz style; Middleton's piano, however, is less present here than in Rough And Ready, or at any rate, assumes a less prominent character.

We begin with "Ice Cream Cakes" (my favorite) which contains one of Becky's gems: the "bouncing ball" effect at 2'54", reprised years later in "Brush With The Blues" 1999 and probably achieved with the chicken picking technique. However, from 2'22" it’s all a delight, moans, runs, slowdowns...
"Glad All Over" is the typical r'n'r track of the group that takes us back to the old Truth & BeckOla and, honestly, Rod Stewart's voice would not have been unwelcome! The sound after 1'26" appears very southern-rock, Dire Straits ten years earlier?
"Tonight I'll Be Staying Here with You" is a delicate track with a soulful flavor featuring a piercing, almost onomatopoeic solo! It gives the impression of hearing an animal’s call...
"Highways" starts with an interesting guitar phrase with a creamy sound (Page-like, I'd say) and it almost seems like someone is "talking"; the final piano solo gives it a pseudo-progressive sound.
"I Can't Give Back the Love I Feel for You" is a poignant instrumental in a "weeping" style with slide and wha-wha which, however, features an interesting "sitar" sound at 1'03" that takes us directly back in time to the era of the Yardbirds.

"Going Down" represents the quintessential guitar track of the album, a popular blues hit by Don Nix, made famous by the great blues guitarist Freddie King whose licks soon became subject matter for study by Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page.
Here Beck showcases much of his guitar knowledge, offering us his "galloping" notes and his triplet licks that take the listener directly inside a race car or to the racetrack...
Memorable will be the performance in duet with Stevie Ray Vaughan in a video from 1989.

"Sugar Cane" is perhaps one of the weaker tracks on the album, a funky ballad where, nonetheless, there’s an interesting guitar lick at 2'39" and an ending that, if not truncated, could have added a few more points to the track. "I Got to Have a Song" follows the same line but with, I'd say, a more soulful than funky taste. Ah! At the end there is the usual descending lick in Jeff's Boogie style...
A real treasure is the track that closes the album, "Definitely Maybe", an exhilarating instrumental performed with slide and wha-wha with a "weeping" effect and with the simultaneous presence of different guitar parts that can be absolutely distinguished.

What to say! An album full of Beck's "school" licks, feedback, slide, wha-wha and probably one of the most elegant and delicate recorded till then by our hero.
Stylistically, it seems a step back from the funky-rock directions of Rough and Ready and I venture to say that perhaps this allowed Jeff to then mature the choice of subsequent fusion albums (except for the boogie interlude of the upcoming "BB&A" which will have much more in common with Rough and Ready than with this work...).
It is certain that the funky legacies, thanks to the wha-wha (here used sparingly and not as he would later with the "mouth bag"...) disorient the listener concerning the pastoral-lyrical ambitions to come.
But I would dare to observe  that, nonetheless, Beck's sound has always used the wha-wha as a foundational element and aside from subsequent uses of the "mouth bag", his use as a solo instrument has always been linked to "sonic" exploration rather than as a standalone effect (see the unrestrained use by other guitarists of the time...).

Jeff has accustomed us to his absolutely nonconformist paths, to his surprising "choices – non-choices" musical (refusal to join the Rolling Stones, lineup changes, disappearance of the pick from his hands, abolition of the Les Paul in favor of the Strat...)
But, in all honesty, don’t we adore him for this? Don't we appreciate him when with his genius tricks he takes us to the zoo, to the racetrack, to a racetrack, to India, to Eastern Europe, to Arabia, or directly to "bed" with his seductive notes?

...no rules but mine! – Geoffrey Arnold Beck