Tag: Bruce Davison

Here we have the very last official release by The Nice. It’s another live/studio mix of things: four tracks, two recorded at the FIllmore East, two recorded at Trident Studios in London.

This gives the lie to something I said about the previous album Five Bridges. I’d claimed that their last studio recording was the final and only studio track on the album, “One of Those People.” I can amend that to say that “One of Those People” was the last original track recorded by the band, since the two recordings here are renditions of “My Back Pages” by Dylan and Tchaikovsky’s “Pathetíque Symphony, 3rd Movement.” There’s a different, longer version of the Tchaikovsky piece on Five Bridges.

There are no originals here, everything is material sourced from outside the band. the two live tracks are Tim Hardin’s “Hang On to a Dream” and Bernstein/Sondheim’s “America” from West Side Story. Again, we’re straddling that line between rock and classical, a line pretty much marked off and danced back and forth over by The Nice.

The cover is again by Hipgnosis. This photo session was more expensive, as the photography was done in the Sahara Desert. It definitely has that surreal Hipgnosis feel to it. There is, evidently, a gatefold version of this cover. My copy is in a standard jacket.

Side 1 is the two folk-derived tracks. “Hang On To a Dream” is a jazz/blues take, with a lot of piano soloing, and then a middle section that feels a bit more trancy and features something that sounds like Emerson reaching inside the piano and plucking the strings directly. I like the acoustic feel of the track. There’s no organ and the bass has a flat sound that feels like a hollow body played through a very clean amp — almost like stand-up, but it penetrates a bit better than a double bass would in this context. All of the flash comes from Emerson, although both members of the rhythm section add bits of flair here and there.

I’m doing this series of posts based on things I’ve read saying that Keith Emerson left the Nice because they didn’t measure up musically, but in general, my sense is that Jackson and Davison don’t seem like liabilities. I won’t say that about Jackson’s voice. His voice is flat and nondescript. I’m sure that’s not meeting the standard, but what do I know? Keith Emerson isn’t here to tell me. I have to say that I wish he had a little bit more edge, a little bit more fullness, but it also seems like he has that smooth jazz voice that was the style at the time.

Then on “My Back Pages,” I hear the limitations more. Jackson is almost croaking here, when he pushes. Emerson starts on piano, then switches to organ and sounds a bit more like the ELP guy, though the feeling is less the early-seventies “electric” thing than a more amped-up jazz feel. It’s got some rock edge to it, but we’re definitely keeping to a more human feel. Even though it’s a studio track, it still seems very live.

I’ll post about side 2 in a bit.

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