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.
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