991. Queen / Jazz. 1978. 4/5

The pressure of writing an album, recording an album and then touring an album, only to start the whole process over again, all in the span of 12 or so months, must be an enormously difficult thing to do. The fact that Queen did this most of the way through the 1970’s and early 1980’s, producing a new album every year from their self-titled debut album “Queen” right through to “Hot Space”, is a remarkable achievement, and the fact that the quality is generally of the highest order is even more remarkable. Opinions on how high that quality is on some albums does tend to shift around, and this period of the band is one of those instances.
After the magnificence of what had been the “A Night at the Opera” album, the follow up of “A Day at the Races” had been mixed, some iconic tracks alongside others that seemed to want to head in the same direction but didn’t quite match up. This was then followed by “News of the World”, the episode on which you can find in Season 3 of this podcast. Written and released at the start of the dominating punk movement in the UK, it is an album that held its own as the band remained true to their own music rather than look to change with the times, and it has held up because of this fact.
Coming to this album the following year not a lot had changed in the music world with punk still making its presence felt and the AOR movement in the US also holding firm to the radio airwaves. The band had decided to record outside of the UK for tax purposes, and settled on Montreux as their main port of call for the album that became known as “Jazz”, where the Montreux Jazz Festival was being held and which the band attended, and likely inspired the name of the album.
It is interesting to read reviews of this album from the time it was released, with many big time American publications such as Rolling Stone and Creem being particularly derogative of the final product. It is difficult to decide whether or not this was an honest review of the album, or just an ongoing diatribe from these particular publications over the style of music Queen chose to write and record. From the language used in those reviews it appears that there was a personal affront in their composition rather than any true effort to critique what the band had released, something that these two magazines in particular were not adverse to doing when they wanted to bring a band back to heel.

The opening track “Mustapha” bounds along in an excited chanting of lines in various languages that at least all sound like they rhyme together and fit together in sentences, but to be honest I have pretty much zero idea what is being said or what the song is about. Despite this, it’s hard not to like Freddie’s enthusiasm and pronunciation of whatever it is he’s saying. I wonder if the band knew what the song was about? This is followed by the well-rounded and often sung “Fat Bottomed Girls”, which has a great rhythm line underneath the song, a great chorus track and guitar riff to go along with the grin hidden behind a hand of teenage boys everywhere as they sang it.
“Jealousy” rises and falls on Freddie’s vocals, manipulating the mood of the track simply in the nuances of his vocals. Along with the backing vocals, it is a beautiful song. The relative gentleness of the track allows it to transition into “Bicycle Race” without losing integrity. “Bicycle Race” morphed nicely with “Fat Bottomed Girls” by mentioning it within the song, but it also has lyrics that reference the era that the song was written, and as such became a fun song to learn and then sprout the lyrics back at the people around you as you sang. These two short-but-sweet songs were always a popular part of Queen’s armoury, and found plenty of airplay due to their short playtime. “If You Can’t Beat Them” is an easy listening sing along track in a typical John Deacon style. It’s catchy and easy to move along with. Brian actually played all the guitars on this song, which was unusual for songs composed by John.
“Let Me Entertain You” closes out the first side of the album and has always been one of my favourite Queen tracks, though it is one I found from their live recording before I had ever heard “Jazz”. It is one of the heaviest tracks written by Freddie, though much of that comes from Brian’s guitar riff and his solo burst. Still, Freddie sings this hard and loud, preaching to the audience as he did so well. This still sounds great today. Side Two then opens up with “Dead on Time”, another of Queen’s most aggressively hard songs led by Brian’s guitar again as well as Roger’s great drumming. These two songs back to back showcase the best of that heavier side of Queen, revealing that part of their personality for the world to hear. It’s a shame that this song was never performed live, I believe it would have sounded great.
The album dials back to that much gentler aspect of the band’s brilliance, with “In Only Seven Days” where Freddie shows how amazing his vocal capacity is, having shown his faster and energetic vocal range in the previous two songs, to slipping into this easy paced song with gentle higher vocals. Amazing. This is followed by “Dreamer’s Ball” which sounds like it could have come from the “A Night at the Opera” album. “Fun It” is a quintessential Roger Taylor track with all of his tricks of the trade thrown it. He again plays most of the instruments and shares lead vocals throughout with Freddie. “Leaving Home Ain’t Easy” is Brian’s quiet ballad, almost Beatles-ish in its composition. Having heard the harder side earlier in the album, these four songs showcase the lighter side of the band, without losing any integrity in the tracks. Terrific stuff.
“Don’t Stop Me Now” is in my opinion one of the five best Queen tracks of all time. Positive lyrics, driving drums and lead bass riff, the piano being the major instrument throughout with Brian’s guitar just coming it to make highlight spots, and of course Freddie’s vocals topping everything off. If you could write one song and play it for eternity, it would quite probably be this one for me. It is a brilliant piece of song writing and musicianship.
The final track “More of That Jazz” is written and almost completely performed by Roger, and it is very much his style of track. It is eclectic, staccato with lots of guitar and vocal lines and harmonies mixed into places that don’t seem to be in any form, but somehow come together to make a great song. Not only do we hear his own amazing vocal range, when you first hear the song you think something has happened to the recording, because suddenly snatches of other songs on the record start coming into the mix. It’s unusual, but became common place amongst Roger’s own solo stuff. Opinions no doubt range on it, but personally I like it.

There is something for everyone on “Jazz” and it all comes together in a perfect way. The musicianship is second to none with each members at the top of their game. The vocals of all three major contributors is superb, with Freddie quite awesomely showing he can sing just about any type of song. And the variety of the songs doesn’t intrude on each other, somehow, they all tend to mesh together perfectly despite the wide range of influences that come into them. It juggles the different nuances of the song catalogue of Queen once again, continuing the 1970's transition of the band from heavily progressive rock in the early days through to more radio friendly hard rock, but without compromising their amazing talents or ingenious song designs.
I didn’t listen to the 1970’s Queen albums until I had left high school and had well and truly been captured by their 80’s albums such as “The Works” and “A Kind of Magic”, and then “The Miracle”. And the difference in styles was immediately noticeable once I began to digest them all at that time. “Jazz” had always been one that attracted me, mostly because of the way it flows along, able to connect songs of different varieties without driving a wedge between them or losing the momentum that is created. It is generally the harder songs on the album that I love, such as "Mustapha", "If You Can't Beat Them", "Let Me Entertain You" and "Dead on Time", and in particular the guitaring of Brian and drumming of Roger that grabs me. But take a listen to Freddie's song "Jealousy", and his vocals throughout. Just magnificent. They are of course brilliant throughout the album, but they are showcased on this song in particular.
I am always interested in discussing Queen albums and where people like to rank them, because this album in particular is one where a large discrepancy of opinion lies. While I have always held it in high regards, others that I talk to are more circumspect, and less forthcoming in praise for it. Not to the point of those magazine reviews from so many years ago, as Queen lovers basically love every album they have released. But the opinions do differ with this one album, which often makes for a lively conversation.
The next few years, with the change of decade and the changes in the music scene worldwide, brought some recalibration from Queen. More factors became involved in their music, and their lives as a whole, as the 80’s approached and moved the goalposts. It may have been different, but they remained as ever, Queen.