Once having done that, they have to find a way to get back into the rock style of the song in order to end it. After two verses they find their way into a piano solo which involves several changes, several breaks, and which gets farther and farther into a jazz thing. Bobby Colomby's drumming is particularly at fault: he overplays everything. The verses are done at rushed pace and the rhythm is syncopated so as to fragment the lines of the verse instead of holding them together. The song begins with an over-elaborate horn intro. B, S & T have taken the edge off of Traffic's version. They did the song as a largely straight R & B piece, with Jim Capaldi playing a primitive and simple four beat on drums. 'Smiling Phases' is well known as one of Traffic's finest recordings. I realize that these are harsh criticisms but I think a careful listening to several songs in particular bear them out. Here they are too intent on proving that they can out-do the first album and wind up letting the material manage them. In their first album, B, S & T managed their material (which was - in the form of Kooper's songs - considerably better than the new material) in a beautiful way. The listener responds to the illusion that he is hearing something new when in fact he is hearing mediocre rock, OK jazz, etc., thrown together in a contrived and purposeless way. The elements of their arrangements often have little musical relationship with each other. Unfortunately, the only result of such an approach can be a pastiche of styles that are fitted together in an artificial way. Perhaps they thought it would be better to maintain the integrity of each style and to combine them without mixing them. Most efforts by musicians to merge varying styles have been more than dismal. There is an understandable reason why B, S & T have adopted this approach. Styles exist in tangent on their record, but never merge into one. Ultimately, someone at Columbia will come up with a name for it: 'jazz-folk-soul-baroque-C&W-latin-show-tune-rock.' And for once the hyphenated labeling would be appropriate because B, S & T play hyphenated music: first they play folk, then they play jazz, then they play latin, etc. The obvious response is that we are hearing something new: rock being mixed with jazz, rock being mixed with soul, etc. „The new Blood, Sweat & Tears album is a perfect example of the rock record that 'tries harder.' While at some points on the record the basic style of the group resembles rock and roll, more often the listener is being bombarded with non-rock arranging devices, non-rock solos, and non-rock material, all of which tells him that 'something else' is going. In 1970 the band won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year. With the 1969 release of their self-titled second album, Blood, Sweat & Tears - now with lead vocalist David Clayton-Thomas - catapulted onto the charts with their smash hits, 'You've Made Me So Very Happy,' 'And When I Die' and the anthemic 'Spinning Wheel.'īlending their many diverse styles into an altogether new pop sound, the record established Blood, Sweat & Tears as one of the most dynamic bands of their Info for Blood, Sweat & Tears (Expanded Edition)