The saga of the late Jack Nitzsche is a legendary one. From work with The Rolling Stones and Neil Young, and Top 40 hits on his own ("The Lonely Surfer"), the vastly-talented musician ended up doing film work (Performance in 1970, The Exorcist in 1973, and One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest in 1975, among others). His career was impressive but his solo work under his own name as a rock musician was either lost or neglected. Thankfully, Mapache Records have reissued Nitzsche's 1974 solo album and fans should be joyous about that.
Previously only avialble as part of a compilation, the unreleased record, a collaboration with the visionary film-maker Robert Downey, exudes charms that are close to those of an early Zappa record ("Who Say What To Who"), only with lush production, or a warmer, looser spin on Randy Newman's brand of pop ("Lower California"). Still, "I'm The Loneliest Fool" is absolutely breathtaking. A swoon-inducing ramble in the manner of Van Dyke Parks, this number is elegant and eccentric in equal measure, strings giving way to piano noodling. For all of Nitzsche's skills, his rootless experimental streak shines here on Jack Nitzsche, and on every cut.
While "Hanging Around" and "On the Moodus Run" seem the sort of thing that maybe Rufus Wainwright, High Llamas, and Super Furry Animals all cribbed from, the bold "Number Eleven", the closer here, goes in another direction entirely. The epic number is woozy, and it feels like a track from a soundtrack. There's elegance here, and it's the sort of elegance that nearly everything Jack Nitzsche touched had, even if he gave off an apperance of being a distracted genius, or a scattershot one. When focused, as he is here on this release, he's the equal of Randy Newman or Van Dyke Parks from the same era.
Jack Nitzsche is out now via Mapache Records.
[Photo: Malpache Records]