Description
The best stereo soundboard master of the fusion unit “Legends” formed by Clapton in 1997 has been leaked! Speaking of “Legends”, it was a one-off fusion unit that Eric Clapton joined at the request of drummer Steve Gadd in the summer of 1997 while he was finishing up the album “Pilgrim”. The members were top-notch people such as Gadd, David Sanborn (sax), Marcus Miller (bass), and Joe Sample (piano). When Miller and Gadd were discussing an interesting band plan to tour only jazz festivals in Europe for two weeks in the summer, the name of Larry Carlton was initially mentioned as the guitarist, but Gadd came up with the idea, “Isn’t that too obvious? If Eric Clapton joined us, it would be unexpected and interesting,” and asked Clapton about it. Clapton, who has connections with Gadd and Sanborn, readily agreed. A supergroup was born here, and a two-week limited tour was realized. This work is a complete recording of their debut performance at the “Monterey Jazz Festival” held in Monterey, Switzerland on July 4th, with an official level stereo soundboard recording. The stage on this day has been officially released as a video work, so it may not be unusual as a sound source. However, this master is not a cheap product that extracts the sound from the official video and makes it into a sound record, but a leak of a 24-bit master that was officially recorded separately from the official video! Therefore, the mix is naturally different from the sound of the video. The positioning of each instrument is different, and the cheers of the audience recorded and mixed with an ambient microphone are also different. The sound quality is a “superb” stereo soundboard recording with clear and clear stereo separation, which is enough to release an official live album as it is. Here, which was the first place for this unit to be unveiled, you can see Clapton still exposing some awkwardness in the fusion numbers. However, this was a time when he was playing the gold-plated Special Stratocaster given to him by Fender, and the performance captured the best performance by this limited super band, which was truly “elite”. The extremely rare set list and performance of this unit alone made the unexpected dream stage of “Clapton playing fusion music with jazz musicians” a reality, but let’s take a look back at what position 1997 held in Clapton’s career. Clapton’s activities this year were as follows. – February 26: Attended the 39th Grammy Awards held at Madison Square Garden. Change The World won “Record of the Year” and “Best Male Pop Vocal Performance”, and performed a commemorative performance with Babyface. – July 3rd to 17th: Embarked on a short European jazz festival tour under the name “Legends”, a fusion unit formed with Marcus Miller, David Sanborn, Steve Gadd and Joe Sample (the dress rehearsal (open rehearsal) was held at the Montreux Jazz Festival venue on the 3rd).←★Here★- September 15th: Appeared alongside a number of other artists at the “Concert for Montserrat”, a benefit concert held at the Royal Albert Hall in London at the invitation of George Martin to support victims of the volcanic eruption on Montserrat Island. – September 25th: Appeared and performed with Babyface on Babyface’s MTV “Unplugged” show, filmed at New York’s Hammerstein Ballroom.・October 9th and 10th: Performances in Seoul, Korea ・October 13th to 31st: Japan Tour (13 performances in total) ・December 31st: Organized and performed at the annual charity concert “New Year’s Eve Dance” in Woking, Surrey, England. From the above, we can see that there was no worldwide tour this year, and apart from appearances at spot events and a short tour with this fusion unit, the only regular solo tour was the one in Seoul just before the later Japan performance, which served as a warm-up for the later Japan performance. This is because Clapton had been focusing on recording a memorial album for his late son (released as “PILGRIM” the following year), which he had been working on for six years since 1992. It is assumed that he would have liked to devote himself to making the album, but as for the Japan tour, it had become customary to do it “once every two or three years,” and it is thought that it was carried out because he had booked for 1997 when he came to Japan in 1995. And his participation in this unit may have been a little break from the album’s production. In 1997, the album had not yet been mixed down, but on this stage, he played Going Down Slow, which is included in the album, in the same arrangement as the album. Also, considering that the set included the blues song Third Degree and the vocal song Layla, which was mainly instrumental numbers, and that the second encore song was Every Day I Have The Blues by B.B. King, whom Clapton admired and often featured in his own set at that time, it is clear that the band members paid tribute to the “unexpected guest” Clapton. Furthermore, Ruthie was a number specially written by Miller in honour of Clapton’s daughter. Looking at these things, the members must have been very happy to be able to perform with Clapton (Clapton later participated in Miller’s album, and Sample was selected as the keyboard for the Japan tour after this). Layla, accompanied by Miller on clarinet, is a performance that can only be heard here. They were materialized on this stage. Please enjoy this miraculous stage by top-class musicians, which has never been realized since then, recorded with a newly excavated superb stereo soundboard master. Live at Auditorium Stravinsky, Montreux, Switzerland 4th July 1997 STEREO SBD(from Original Masters) UPGRADE!!! Disc:1 (50:42) 1. Intro 2. Full House 3. Marcus #1 4. Ruthie 5. Snakes 6. Band Introductions 7. Going Down Slow 8. Peeper Disc:2 (57:08) 1. Suggestions 2. Third Degree 3. First Song / Tango 4. Put It Where You Want It 5. Jelly Roll 6. In A Sentimental Mood 7. Layla (encore) 8. Every Day I Have The Blues (encore) Eric Clapton guitar / vocals David Sanborn saxophone Joe Sample piano / keyboards Marcus Miller bass / bass clarinet Steve Gadd drums STEREO SOUNDBOARD RECORDING
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