The Keith Tippett Group
Dedicated To You, But You Weren't Listening

Lights on one of the great "brains" of new English music from the '70s, a profound theorist and masterful executor of "different", difficult sounds of undisputed revolutionary significance. This young and semi-unknown pianist was only 22 years old, a voracious and maniacal listener of records by Gil Evans and Charles Mingus (just to name two), when Robert Fripp, eager to immediately follow up on one of the most dazzling debuts in Rock history, called him for the sessions of "In The Wake Of Poseidon." Keith Tippett would remain in the court of the Crimson King for only three years, just long enough to deliver two more exquisite albums, crucial (and somewhat underrated) milestones in the evolution of that sound: "Lizard" and "Islands." In this regard, many Crimson fans agree in thinking of "Lizard" as the most complex, intricate, and stylistically varied album of the group's early period: what is heard in the grooves of that work, heavily influenced by Keith Jarrett and the new electric sounds of the more recent Miles Davis, is largely credited to Tippett's genius, the Jazz soul of those Crimsons alongside Mel Collins (it was 1970, but the development of the sprawling suite that gave the album its title still impresses and astonishes today); the undeniable sonic chemistry established within that fleeting yet historic edition of King Crimson is evidenced by the fact that Fripp invited (albeit unsuccessfully) Tippett to remain in the group permanently; but the pianist from Bristol had already developed, on his own, such a strong artistic personality that he was able to embark on a brilliant solo career during those same years, which quickly earned him a place of absolute prestige among the aristocracy of new English Jazz.

Because we are talking about Jazz, despite the undeniable familiarity of our protagonist with the Prog-Rock scene, and his habitual ease in frequenting the same environments where figures like Robert Wyatt, Elton Dean, and Roy Babbington operated: all formally trained jazz musicians, but creators of new forms of Jazz-Rock that Tippett did not fully embrace, always maintaining a marked inclination for certain timbre-stylistic solutions peculiar to the jazz tradition: among these, the widespread use of the double bass at the expense of the electric bass, which is used with great parsimony, and the weak presence of the guitar, which barely manages to carve out spaces of leading relevance.

Not Jazz-Rock, then (since the Rock component is extremely marginal in Tippett's music), but predominantly acoustic and highly experimental Jazz, "claustrophobic" at times, characterized by great instrumental density and a wide freedom afforded to improvisation and exploration. It has often been said that Tippett's early records, both with the Keith Tippett Group and with Centipede, sound louder and noisier than a classic Jazz record (Cool Jazz, we hypothesize): this impression is confirmed by the tendency of the soloists involved to seek a very harsh, sometimes shrill expressive tone, marked by a certain aggressiveness in the execution. Some have also used this argument to claim the Jazz-Rock matrix of albums like "You Are Here...I Am There", or the present "Dedicated To You", but in my view, resorting to such labels is entirely improper, considering the significant stylistic distance that separates these works from the contemporary works of Soft Machine and Nucleus (although the musicians employed largely belong to the circle of these two formations).

With this appropriate premise about Tippett's musical aesthetics, in an attempt to frame the artist in the position that suits him best, I proceed to review the album that can be considered the highest testimony of such aesthetics. "Dedicated To You, But You Weren't Listening", published in 1971 by Vertigo, is a shocking and evocative album at the same time, starting with a cover worth a few words: the image of a fetus developing in a woman's brain who softly utters the title's words goes far beyond the undeniably artistic excellence of the drawing; more than anything else, it constitutes the imagined representation of the processual nature of the creative act: the musical idea (the fetus) is conceived by the brain and birthed from it, through the mouth (the most elementary and primitive instrument for producing sounds), it is communicated and materializes into a phrase, a message that the listener can enjoy. It's the ideal manifesto of a principle of "cerebral music", yet nonetheless in tune with the corporeality and emotion that have always been inherent in the improvisational act, which is the essence of Jazz. The album title is also taken from "Soft Machine Two."

Ten elements are called to compose the ensemble tasked with accompanying the pianist: among them, the indispensable Robert Wyatt on drums, Elton Dean on alto sax, Marc Charig on trumpet, Nick Evans on trombone, and Roy Babbington on bass and double bass. The proposed pieces are mostly quite extended ("Thoughts To Geoff" exceeds ten minutes and even fades out at the end): compositions of pre-structured architecture alternate with mood-driven suggestions and moments of pure, radical atonality. Tippett's great qualities as an arranger of the horn section stand out, confirming that his contribution to the success of the album certainly does not end with his (elegant and multifaceted) piano touch.

It is Elton Dean's sax that opens the almost-Rumba of "This Is What Happens" in grand style, supported by Robert Wyatt's incisive and imaginative drumming on the rhythmic carpet of Tony Uta's congas; the leader's solo, occupying the second part of the piece, owes equal parts to Blues and certain Latin American harmonic lines, but Marc Charig's trumpet is also surprising.

Cacophonous and dissonant is the beginning of the long "Thoughts To Geoff": pure "governed" chaos (an understatement) by the musicians' changing moods, up to the decisive, compelling entry of the double bass, which energizes the atmosphere by climbing tortuous modal scales: the horns present the theme in unison, before three long solos performed in succession by Evans, Charig, and Tippett himself; the piano solo, executed by the leader in a very "percussive" style, is tight and agitated, and the dialogue between the instruments and the drums is remarkable as a whole.

Even more experimental in its design is the subsequent "Green And Orange Night Park": melancholic, even morose is how I would describe the opening theme, before the piece tunes into the obsessive iteration of two basic chords, providing an inviting springboard for the varied interventions of the horn players: Charig takes the lead with his cornet, executing whirlwind phrases primarily played on modulation of high tones.

Neurasthenic (and very Zappa-esque) is the collective improvisation of "Gridal Suite": noise and bizarre sonic solutions, horns "braying" as they chase each other over the precarious but constant background of drums and double bass; imagine the closing of "21st Century Schizoid Man" played with acoustic instrumentation and you'll have a significant idea of how this unusual "suite" might sound. In "Five After Dawn" the same wavelength continues, it seems like a logical continuation of the previous track, only in the context of further sound harshness and a clearer deconstruction of compositional rules.

Very brief is the title track, actually a simple 33-second interlude, serving to introduce the concluding "Black Horse": perhaps the most conventional (and consequently most accessible) track on the record, and in its Latin-tinged stride, there are echoes of early Santana's Rhythm & Blues, as well as a greater proximity to certain classic Rock styles: the electric solo by guitarist Gary Boyle, previously with Brian Auger's Trinity and later founder of Isotope, is acidic and passionate, but Elton Dean also shines...

Five historical stars. An absolute pinnacle in the career of the great Keith. Therefore, an unmissable album.