Outside Counsel

Traffic's music has been following me around since I made fun of Dave Mason a week or so ago, and now I understand why: in today's NYTimes I found Jim Capaldi's obit. Such zeitgeist moments can be a bit unnerving. I had dug out my old Traffic sides last Saturday and surfed around a bit to dig up some information abut the band with a view towards writing a post about the band's unusual jazz-rock fusion. (I'm pretty sure my copy of "Mr. Fantasy" must be somewhere near Botany Bay-- in any event, I couldn't find it.) I heard "John Barleycorn Must Die" on WLIR ("Avant Garde Radio") when it came out, and Traffic became my favorite band on the spot. I couldn't face that album last week-- too played at this point, 35 years on. I have to admit that I'm inclined to side more with Christgau these days ("With Dave Mason gone there's not much electric guitar or songwriting, leaving the chronically indecisive Stev(i)e Winwood to his feckless improvised rock, or is it folksong-based jazz? Not much bass no matter what it is. And Chris Wood blows a lot. C+"). "The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys" just sounds twee these days, but the live "Welcome to the Canteen" looked about right. The histories of the band suggest that Dave Mason's regular departures were occasioned by Winwood's petulance as much as anything else-- the band would show up in the studio, they'd record some songs, the label would pick Mason's song for the single, then Winwood would join Blind Faith or Ginger Baker's Airforce or something until Mason went away. Then Winwood'd re-form Traffic. Mason was on board for "Canteen", which suffers from either terrible acoustics or lousy mastering, but which also rocks along pretty good. Indeed, listening to it, I got the impression of a band that was probably never really well represented by its recorded output. Because one of its principal songwriters and singers was on the outs half the time, Traffic's studio work is often characterized by too-long jams and meanderings. Because the band's guitarist was the songwriter that was on the outs said jams don't have much by way of interesting guitar work. But when you listen to "Canteen" there is some solid playing, some interesting solos, some intelligent ensemble work. Too bad "Canteen" was so obviously a piece of corporate profit-taking: with a little work and a little care it could have been a testament to a band that was really quite a bit better than a lot of outfits working at the time.

All that said, when the band was at its best, I think, was when it was working a straight rock'n'roll groove. The jazzy stylings that it is remembered for today are nothing special. Songs like "Empty Pages" or "Shouldn't Have Took More Than You Gave" really hold up. Winwood is an expressive singer who has almost nothing to say, possessed by a gigantic ego that prevents him from turning his talents towards songs that he might perform well. Christgau again: "What can you expect of a man who could have sung like Ray Charles and chose instead to follow in the voiceprints of Jack Bruce?"

When I first thought about writing something on Traffic I planned on saying something about why it's jazz-rock was different. I think where I was going was to note that they were not working in the electric vein pioneered by Miles Davis, or in the blues/funk mode that Herbie Hancock was exploring, but now, having been over it a bit, I find that describing Traffic as "jazzy" is something of a misnomer. "Jazz influenced instrumentals" is about as far as I can go with them, when Mason is absent, and when Mason is absent seems to be when the band was the least interesting. I'm not sure where that leaves me, but I guess I don't really miss that copy of "Mr. Fantasy" all that much.