A man is chiefly defined by what he does with his hands, and that David Axelrod’s career can be partly defined by a rock interpretation of Handel’s Messiah is more eloquent an illustration of the man than any turn of phrase you are likely to find here. Axelrod always was and always will be something of a unique proposition in music of the late twentieth-century in that he clearly never gave a fuck about satisfying the expectations of the popular, madding crowd. The first man to grapple successfully with Black and African music, Axelrod oversaw another first: the creation of a Black Music division at Capitol Records in the mid-’60s, records hustled partly through the black communities of Los Angeles where promoters had thus far refused to venture. And when I say Black music, I’m not talking about the frothy pop protocol of Phil Spector and the girlie bands; I’m talking about the funky African folk and psychedelic output of the heavenly Letta Mbululu and jazz saxophonist, Cannonball Adderley. With his ability to roll with the punches and absorb a few blows, it should come as no surprise to learn that Axelrod started his career as a boxer in a ‘tough fucking street’ in Crenshaw, a predominantly black neighbourhood in South Central Los Angeles and driven fiercely by rhythm and blues. It was a start in life that prepared him for all the scraps with label bosses and fights to defend his instincts.
Though he worked for a series of labels over the course of his varied career, David Axelrod is best known as one of Capitol Records’ foremost producers during the company’s glory years in the 1960s. Under his production, actor David McCallum released four albums; soulster Lou Rawls released a countless number of LPs (including his first gold album, Lou Rawls Live) and Cannonball Adderly released ‘Mercy, Mercy, Mercy’ (1966), one of the highest selling jazz albums of all time. For his won part, Axelrod himself released three albums as a solo artist on Capitol – ‘Songs of Innocence’ (1968), ‘Songs of Experience’ (1969), and ‘Earth Rot’ (1970) – the first of which even legendary producer Quincy Jones admitted was the immediate precursor to jazz-fusion. And what you have here is a brief but solid testament to his output during those years at Capitol peaking with the ‘Theme From The Fox’ with conductor, Don Randi – a timeless and lightly melancholic classic. The main hub of the material, however, consists of cuts from the William Blake inspired ‘Songs Of Innocence’ and ‘Songs Of Experience’ LPs, offering cuts of almost impossible plausibility: jazz, blues, funky beats, funky bass, psychedelia, heavy orchestration, horn-sections, harpsichords, church-organs, pianos and symphonic soul. It was a largely impossible sound. In other people’s hands these wildy disparate textures and meshings of styles and genres would have collapsed in a morass of dramatic hoplessness; in Axelrod’s hands they became a natural and global expression of harmony – of worlds and realities brought spectacularly together; a surreal and otherworldly music of dimensions. If Axelrod’s music wasn’t able to enjoy the technology of sampling, it could at least enjoy its complex, post-modernist spoils. And sure to pique your curiosity still further, there are even a few cuts with Capitol Golden-Boy and Man From Uncle star, David McCallum.
If DJs and producers like Dr.Dre, Mos Def and DJ Shadow are as inspired by this epic rock maverick as I am, you should be also. When you’re dropping names like Spector and Meek, drop one in for David.