Jimi Hendrix's Live at Fillmore East

The album opener, "Stone Free," is a blues-based rocker which Hendrix had recorded with the Experience, his previous and most popular band. With the Gypsys, the song remains the same, but the groove is funkier, mainly because of drummer Buddy Miles and bassist Billy Cox, who naturally incline toward well-placed syncopation and a locked-in rhythm. Even the Experience classic "Voodoo Chile (Slight Return)" is funked up, as the band turns it from a personal soul statement into a collective groove. "We know that you feel it," Miles tells the audience as he leads into the next tune, "We Gotta Live Together," a jam whose title is Miles' mantra throughout the album. Jimi plays percussive riffs, using patterns and chords that, although staples of funk now, were wholly original at the time.

Disc Two opens with a midnight version of "Auld Lang Syne" to herald a new decade of inventive sound. After some excellent wah-wah work from Hendrix, and edgy vocals from Miles on "Who Knows" and "Changes," the band puts dynamics and emotion into "Machine Gun." "Gonna pick up my axe and fight like a farmer," Hendrix sings as he puts the axe to work, combining his Univibe and wah effects with feedback and precision. He then recreates the sounds of war, including the bugle call from his classic version of the national anthem. This song is the creative highlight of the Gypsys' short tenure, and once the album has hit this point, it can go no further. The album moves toward a close with songs which were then in the works, but anticipate more recent sounds. "Stepping Stone," which melds country and rock textures, sounds more like a mid-'90s grunge album.

For all the styles that Jimi created and merged with his music, he was ultimately a rock 'n' roll artist, and the album closer, the simple but solid classic "Wild Thing," attests to this categorization. Cranked-up amplifiers and hard-hit cymbals harken back to Hendrix's first months on the scene as a guy who was "gonna wave my freak flag high." (Experience Hendrix)

--Stuart Rosenberg

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