I'm having a real problem keeping up with Van Morrison. Every decade since the 70s, he has released 9 or 10 (that's not guessing, it's accurate) new records. Now in the 2020s, only five years in, he's released 8 records already, and another is due in June 2025. The guy is 79 years old, and clearly won't slow down. I have managed to write about each of them in my Van Morrison series, which you can read here.
Van Morrison has made several rock solid live records. Live at Austin City Limits Festival 2006 was good, and his live reimagining of Astral Weeks Live at the Hollywood Bowl in 2009 was a blast. It's Too Late to Stop Now 1974 is just one of the best live records ever, and A Night In San Francisco 1994 was a brilliant reworking of his sleepy 80s catalog into funky R&B, and great.
So now comes Live At Orangefield 2024, documenting his live performance at his old secondary school just before it closed in 2014. It is a good selection of songs, and Van certainly seems motivated to perform in the place he gave his first live performance ever as a young school lad in a skiffle group. He can still sing today, so he certainly could do so in 2014. The band is the solid group he'd been touring with for a while, and Dave Keary shines on guitar throughout as do Paul Moran on keys and Alistair White and Chris White on horns.
There's no surprises, but it is enjoyable almost throughout. Cleaning Windows, Moondance, Precious Time, Real Real Gone, Rough God Goes Riding, they all sound very good. The record ends by fading out during In The Garden as the "no guru, no method, no teacher" chorus is still going on. Why? Maybe he was about to walk off and let the band finish, well then lets hear that. It's not that big of a deal, but it's irritating. They could have left out the spoken word On Hyndford Street, which the crowd loves because he name checks locations throughout Belfast, but for the rest of us, it's the least interesting thing here. So it's a good one but not great one. More on that later.
Also in 2024, we get New Arrangements and Duets, an oddball mix of nine older songs rearranged and six duets, all of which were recorded between 2014 and 2019. About half of it is quite good, some is good enough, and two songs are particularly wrong. So it's a good one but not great one. More on that later.
The highlights: Kurt Elling duetting on Ain't Gonna Moan No More (scatting plus a great trumpet solo), a swinging version of Only A Dream, The Beauty of Days Gone By done up hot and jazzy with more great solos on sax and organ, a funky version of So Complicated that isn't much of a rearrangement from the original, and two fine duets with Willie Nelson(!) on What's Wrong With This Picture? and the lovely Steal My Heart Away, where Willie also contributes with his idiosyncratic guitar playing.
The only real disappointments are a big band version of I'll Be Your Lover Too, which bulldozes the gentle original, and a duet with Joss Stone on Someone Like You that makes you want to hear Stone do the song without Van crowding her mostly out. The remaining unmentioned songs are all just fine, and some of the new arrangements are improvements, or at least interesting variations, on the originals.
If you're a fan, both of these are well worth your time. I suppose thinking he's going to come up with one that matches his work in the seventies is a bit like thinking the Rolling Stones will give us another Sticky Fingers.
As for the "it's a good one but not a great one" line, I'll give a fellow blogger the last word. Wardo, an excellent music reviewer who blogs at Everybody's Dummy, left a comment on my most recent Van Morrison entry. He wrote "He keeps making competent, "not-bad" albums... I will be very surprised if he gives us a modern masterpiece."
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