and drummer Connie Kay had played with everyone from Charles Mingus, Oscar Peterson, Leonard Bernstein and Paul Simon between them. Luckily for him, the more than capable line up of double bassist Richard Davis, guitarist Jay Berliner, percussionist Warren Smith Jr. Morrison strummed a couple of ideas, hinted at a few chords, and let the band work out the rest for themselves. The singer is said to have recorded his guitar and vocal parts alone, aloof and separate from the prestigious group of session musicians assembled by producer Lewis Merenstein. By all accounts, the sessions were extremely tense (not surprising, given Morrison’s notoriously difficult attitude).

It was this taut environment, however, that we can ultimately credit for the record’s delightfully peculiar sound and message. ‘Astral Weeks’ was recorded in Boston in 1968, with Morrison in the midst of a label dispute that put a strain on his creative process. A big part of this comes down to his choice of album – arguably Morrison’s finest – as its beguiling harmonies and pained, nostalgic lyrics are a fecund source of inspiration for musicians of all creeds who take the time to study it. Thankfully, Orphy Robinson, the Jazz multi-instrumentalist who is presenting the great Northern Irish songwriter’s seminal 1968 record ‘Astral Weeks’ at this year’s Love Supreme, falls into the latter category. There’s the route of smoked-out 50-somethings on the pub circuit butchering ‘Brown Eyed Girl’ for the fifteenth weekend in succession, which, admittedly, tends to be the majority – or, there is also another way one that understands the depth of Morrison’s work and treats it with the respect it deserves. Ahead of Orphy Robinson’s jazz interpretation of this iconic 60s album at Love Supreme Jazz Festival, we take a look back at Van Morrison’s ethereal magnum opus.Ĭovering Van Morrison can go one of two ways.

Van morrison astral week