Pairing poet Terry Durham with talents including avant-garde saxophonist Evan Parker and veteran arranger John Coleman, Crystal Telephone remains one of the singular records of the late '60s, a lush and funky word-jazz fantasia shrouded in cigarette smoke and drunk on language. Durham's crushed-velvet voice recalls John Cale's spoken word recitation of "The Gift" on the Velvet Underground's White Light/White Heat, albeit couched in Coleman's cinematic, thickly rhythmic jazz-rock settings. His vividly perverse song-poems capture the romantic allure of fatalism (or is that the fatal allure of romance?), and his attempts at crooning, especially Crystal Telephone's transcendent title cut, are particularly effective. A masterpiece of decadence and indulgence.
Crystal Telephone
Terry Durham
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Crystal Telephone Review
by Jason Ankeny
Track Listing
Title/Composer | Performer | Time | Stream | |||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Terry Durham | 03:11 | SpotifyAmazon | |||
2 | Terry Durham | 03:43 | SpotifyAmazon | |||
3 | Terry Durham | 05:41 | SpotifyAmazon | |||
4 | Terry Durham | 02:42 | SpotifyAmazon | |||
5 | Terry Durham | 02:54 | SpotifyAmazon | |||
6 | Terry Durham | 02:53 | SpotifyAmazon | |||
7 | Terry Durham | 03:46 | SpotifyAmazon | |||
8 | Terry Durham | 04:44 | SpotifyAmazon | |||
9 | Terry Durham | 03:44 | SpotifyAmazon | |||
10 | Terry Durham | 03:55 | SpotifyAmazon |