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
Share on
Crystal Telephone Review
by Jason Ankeny
Track Listing
Sample | Title/Composer | Performer | Time | Stream | |||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Terry Durham | 03:11 | Amazon | ||||
2 | Terry Durham | 03:43 | Amazon | ||||
3 | Terry Durham | 05:41 | Amazon | ||||
4 | Terry Durham | 02:42 | Amazon | ||||
5 | Terry Durham | 02:54 | Amazon | ||||
6 | Terry Durham | 02:53 | Amazon | ||||
7 | Terry Durham | 03:46 | Amazon | ||||
8 | Terry Durham | 04:44 | Amazon | ||||
9 | Terry Durham | 03:44 | Amazon | ||||
10 | Terry Durham | 03:55 | Amazon |