Guitarist Jay Berliner (Charles Mingus' The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady), bassist Richard Davis (Eric Dolphy's Out to Lunch), and drummer Connie Kay (of the Modern Jazz Quartet) create an improvisatory space for Morrison's haunted freeform meditations Larry Fallon's overdubs add strings, woodwinds, and harpsichord. A 23-year-old Van Morrison howls, he hollers, he cajoles, he grabs hold of the ineffable and caresses its edges, bending and reiterating it like an instrumental virtuoso. Only Astral Weeks the album could live up to Astral Weeks the legend.
