Review of Jump by Van Dyke Parks

Motivated to write a review of this, as it was following the advice of various people here that motivated me to buy it in the first place. To these people (among them the Heartical Don) I have to say a big thanks. Would just like to get this one out of my system, but I'd love to read other reviews of all VDP albums and songs.

Firstly, should say that I have a patchy knowledge of Van Dyke Park's work, on account of it being scattered everywhere. And in my case, the fact that I thought both BW's and the sessions of Smile was great did not automatically lead me to VDP's music, having had virtually no previous exposure to this. And I had no real mad desire to listen to steel-drum music or vaudeville, which was often how his music is depicted. Journalists often don't know what to make of him.

It's actually very hard to do justice to something like Song Cycle, which is definitely a product of its time, yet also something removed from the trends and movements of the late 1960s. It tries to put the 60s and anti-war movement into a historical context when that historical approach was being largely rejected in favor of revolutionary rhetoric.

It's this disconnect which opened up between Parks and the era that widened to a chasm by the first part of the 1970s. This gap was partly invoked by his apparent refusal to play the rock star game, but also as a genuine sense that the 1970s went in a different direction, and the central years of the 1970s would not be about people like Van Dyke Parks.

This doesn't mean that he ever stopped working, as it appears he was actually appearing everywhere as a musician, but in a musical sense he was nowhere. The struggle to define his own vision was obviously a weight which he had problems maintaining. And with the abandonment of his ambitious and quite seminal efforts of the 1960s, I reckon VDP became more like the rest of us, focusing on everyday life, its smaller triumphs and disappointments.

Except in his case, this everyday existence was marred by the knowledge of what could have been. There's usually no escape from the fact of who we are, and VDP's life would always revolve around music, and friendships based on music. This exposed him to "rock star" levels of tragedy and callousness without providing wider recognition of his music beyond his avid, and influential supporters.

As he infers in the radio interview from the time of its release, Jump! was something of a half-chance, a window of opportunity. The difference throughout Jump! of course is that the flow of consciousness of Song Cycle has been replaced by more plaintive lyrics. It would be simplistic and wrong to say that the 60s VDP was detached and intellectual, as there has always been a strong emotional and melancholic element in his music. I have to say that VDP's voice on Jump! often sounds tearful, especially on a happy-sad song such as "Opportunity for Two." If the face of Song Cycle was smiling through the fog of war and social concern, the effect of Jump! is like a crying person who starts laughing about something entirely unrelated to whatever is causing the problem.

So Van Dyke Parks still manages to capture the spirit of the times, except he's more explicit and concise: the tragedy still exists, the problems of the world are manifold, culture and art are the salvation, and the act of Creation takes on this religious significance. Jump! is transient, it's the moment of realization, but that is itself the levitation and ascension. "Let's spend today" as tomorrow never knows, in the words of Ringo. It's the words of somebody who has looked into the depths and seen their own eyes staring back. Jump! has an unbelievable level of self-awareness, and it knows who its creator is, and its equally self-centered in its own way. One of the most striking songs musically is "I Ain't Going Home," which is dizzy and almost nauseous in its sharp chord changes and tumbling, swooping melody. And there throughout the lyrics an ambiguity which offsets the heartfelt and affectionate nature of "the creature" whether this is Brer Rabbit as alter-ego or as a third-party.

The album would have worked as instrumental-only but the lyrics, being simply written, are themselves massively interesting. "An Invitation To Sin" might be considered a strange track for what is ostensibly a children's album. It's not a song that Barney would sing. But it seems effortless, a Weill-style exercise in dark intent. It's this song that says very clearly that VDP still had big intentions in 1984, and was playing in a big league which in an alternative universe would have made him and not Andrew Lloyd-Webber the big musical director of the 1980s/1990s stage.

The fact it didn't happen then doesn't mean it might not happen at another point. Jump! is a finished, complete piece of work. It sends the audience home feeling happy, back to Hominy Grove, it is more of a participant with its audience than Song Cycle, which in obscurantist way, attempted to enlighten. Jump! doesn't try to educate but it does entertain. All ages.

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