Eric Clapton
"Knights of the Round Table"
Montreux, Switzerland
July 3, 1997

Mid Valley - 015/016 - Aud 6

Disc 1:

1) Full House
2) Snakes
3) Ruthie
4) Marcus #1
5) Going Down Slow
6) Peeper
7) Suggestions

Disc 2:

1) Third Degree
2) 1st Song / Tango
3) Put it Where You Want it
4) Jelly Roll
5) Sentimental / Layla
6) Everyday I Have the Blues

Band Lineup:

Marcus Miller Bass
Eric Clapton Guitar, Vocals
David Sanborn Saxophone
Joe Sample Keyboards, Piano
Steve Gadd Drums

Details from the EC Tourography (ectours.de):

The 31st Montreux Jazz Festival was held on July 4-19, 1997. This show took place on the evening before the official festival started. It was a rehearsal which was done as a freebie for the Festival staff and for sponsors and friends. About 3,000 invited people joined the unofficial debut of the Legends at the Auditorium Stravinsky.

Nobody knew what would happen at this concert. Everybody had been very surprised when Eric started to sing "Going down slow", because this concert had been announced as an "instrumental concert".

Geetarz Comments:

Here we have one of the more fascinating aspects of Eric clapton's career, one that put him in the midst of some of the best jazz musicians on the planet for a short summer festival tour.

It's important to remember that before this tour began, to jazz aficionados, EC was clearly the "odd man out", and expectations were low.

This was, in many ways, the first time Clapton had been in a band - a REAL band - of musical peers since the untimely end of Derek and the Dominos in 1971. This isn't to say that Clapton didn't work with fantastic, talented, world-class musicians. But in the intervening 25 years or so, Clapton had always been the decision maker, the artist, the band leader. Now, he was thrust into musically unfamiliar territory, with the some of the greats of the genre, and it was time to sink or swim, as it were.

The concert of the 3rd, the first "public" outing, is by far the superior performance of the two at Montreux. The band is loose, having a ton of fun, and under much less pressure than the public debut the following night which would be televised.

Musically, this group hits on all cylinders, and it's clear that while the jazz greats take Clapton out of his safe zone - to great effect - he does the same to them.

This group is decidely one of the underappreciated higlights of EC's career. True, there are people who don't care for "music without words", but isn't that sort of like people who only read books with pictures??

A stunning performance on all counts, and a superb audience recording. Highly recommended.

Lineage:

Silver > Kodak Gold CD-R > EAC v. 0.99 Prebeta 5 (Secure, Offset Correct) > FLAC

Artwork, checksums, info file, and EAc logs included.

Play it loud ... and enjoy!

~Geetarz, September 2010

www.geetarz.org