Pulled from the deep recesses of the “rock room,” shelves is a beautifully rendered Van Morrison performance from the Fall of 1974. I previously reviewed another fine performance from this woefully underrepresented tour here and may end up doing a deep dive on all of the circulating recordings eventually.

The story of the tour begins when Morrison showed up for his June 1974 performance at Montreux and only brought along his girlfriend and manager. The promoter Claude Nobs was surprised at Morrison’s minimalist traveling arrangements and asked where the rest of the group was. Keyboardist Pete Wingfield, bass player Jerome Rimson, and drummer Dallas Taylor were quickly assembled for the performance and the band played a tight but loose set made up of several new and unfamiliar songs to the audience.

Featuring one of the most smallest Morrison line ups, Peter Van Hook replaced Taylor, and the group played a festival date at Knebworth in July. Morrison then decided to bring the group out on the road in October and November in support of the new at the time Veedon Fleece record.

After performing with an 11 piece band in 1973, this tour stripped Morrison’s music down to its essential elements. The four-piece band allowed Morrison an instrumental freedom and an airy clean canvass for him to sketch new songs and reimagine his old songs. The tour sets were comprised of tracks from Veedon Fleece as well as songs that were planned for a unreleased 1975 record with the working titles of Mechanical Bliss and Stiff Upper Lip. Two of these unreleased numbers, “Naked in the Jungle,” and “This Is Not the Twilight Zone,” acted as the the load stones for the fall 1974 performances. Peppered in were Morrsion chestnuts and a smattering of well chosen covers from Ray Charles, Bobby Bland and Sonny Boy Williamson II among others.

Morrison was ultra-dexterous on the tour playing acoustic lead guitar, saxophone, and harmonica with tremendous focus and attitude. Wingfield’s keyboards of are an essential part of the arrangements, trading between percolating lead parts and rhythmic bedding in conjunction Morrison’s wiry acoustic guitar. Morrison’s voice is strong, versatile, and raw inside the spacious arrangements while expressing a golden resonance the mirrors his saxophone playing.

Spinning in the rock room is a beautifully recorded audience tape from the Boston Music Hall on October 27, 1974 , the concert perfectly captured on famed taper Joe Maloney’s cassette master. The concert begins, after an introduction by the MC, with the unreleased, “Naked in the Jungle.” A driving and percussive keyboard driven cut, it would be the opening song most nights of the tour, but not see an official release until The Philosophers Stone collection in 1998. Morrison growls his way through the powerful opener.

“Naked in the Jungle,” drops coin in a bucket into the melodic intricacy of “Street Choir.” Moving door to door, “Street Choir,” features the three piece backing and Morrison focused on exploring every nuance of its melody.

“Warm Love,” and “Bulbs,” are a pastoral two-fer that combine two of Morrison’s most enduring melodic explorations. “Warm Love,” is a crowd singalong with a hard driving radiant groove. Morrison misses a lyric but it only makes him more invested. A breathless “Bulbs,” from Veedon Fleece, follows brightly and glows like a resplendent filament. Morrison guitar work is edgy and the song is taken to extraordinary heights by an stunning electric piano solo.

“Into the Mystic,” emits a funky feel while it surges and plunges dynamically showcasing Morrison’s rotating acoustic riffing. Morrison asks the crowd how they are doing before he sings the first verse. He enters into a soft call and response with his guitar while singing the lyrics, adding a specialized feel to the performance. His vocals ascend to a different plane in the chorus, combining the song’s joy and sorrow in beautiful humanity. Morrison brings the music way, way down while playfully riffing with Wingfield right before crescendoing through emotive yelps and hollers.

A long time favorite of Morrison’s, Sonny Boy Williamson II’s “Help Me,” is highlighted by Morrison’s steel wool harmonica that Morrison blows like a roaring smokestack. Again, he and Wingfield duet while pirouetting through the blues shuffle. It’s amazing how the band turns on a dime, following Morrison’s every wont without hesitation.

Ray Charles, “I Believe To My Soul,” is a blue highlight featuring funky alliteration and cool R and B backing vocals by the group. At the first break Morrison blows some filthy saxophone, squealing and squonking his way soulfully through the changes. Keeping with the theme, Morrison plays a rare take “Ain’t Nobody’s Business,” one of the first blues standards and recorded by artists like Billie Holliday and Otis Spann.

“Gonna play some soul music,” Morison says as the band opens up into the atmospheric incantation of “Listen to the Lion” from the 1972 Saint Dominic’s Preview record. A song that would normally surpass ten minutes, this evening’s rendition is no different. Morrison bleats like a horn and moans like a sleeping king of the jungle. Emitting a familiar Morrison meditation, the song moves in and out of a contemplative drift with Morrison humming out sweet variations on the songs melody.

Midway through, a rock and roll motif reveals itself followed by some Morrison driven improv. After a bit, Morrison cools the band out and says, “It’s story time,” the band stops and then starts, Morrison riffs, the intensity rises and falls, the lion stalks its prey. Morrison mentions Jack Nicholson, and reads from the paper before pushing the boogie woogie button and entering into a culminating jam. The crowd responds in kind will yelps of joy for the special performance.

The band moves seamlessly into a celebratory  “Wild Night,” leaving the meditation of the lions den behind and running into the evening air with gleeful anticipation. Without a pause, the Morrison standard, “I’ve Been Workin,” comes out as as a steel driving funk fest with steam whistle harmonica signaling the end of the working day and the fun about the begin.

“I’ve Been Workin,” segues perfectly into another Sonny Boy Williamson II cut, “Take Your Hands Out of My Pockets,” a pushy swing with roly-poly piano and Morrison’s bullet microphone harp blowing. He sings with a finger pointing aggressivness and the rhythm section responds in kind. Morrison blows so hard that dog whistle notes escape from his harmonica signaling Wingfield to come in and take the top off of tghe jamming.

The unreleased at the time, “It’s Not the Twilight Zone,” closes the set proper and sounds like a missing link between Veedon Fleece and Mechanical Bliss. The crowd can discern something is happening as Morrison croons in a spacey falsetto and the instrumentation hovers in a weightless starry cloud of melodic detail. An audience member yells, “Beautiful,” to which I say amen brother, amen.

Morrison’s voice caresses the void gently featuring his best singing of the evening before breaking the spell with grunts and the off microphone exclamations. A moment of note comes when Morrison sings from the event horizon into the room without amplification to which the crowd illustrates their approval. Its a brave choice to end the set with such a delicate investigation, but by the sound of the tape the crowd dug it blissfully.

Morrison and his band return to the stage for a high tempo version of “Moondance,” which begins with Morrison deftly quoting the verse and chorus melody on saxophone. “Fever,” gets pressed between the pages enveloped by “Moondance,” fitting perfectly into its narrative of a magic night. Morrison then introduces his band mates upon the return to “Moondance.”

A cover of Buddy Johnson and His Orchestra’s “Since I Fell In Love You,” follows and Morrison takes comlpete ownership of through his bluesy balladeering. Big snare cracks and timely band drop outs signal extended Morrison vamps where he takes a word and squeezes every drop of emotion from it. The band takes the song from a ballad, to an uptempo R and B waltz, all the while Morrison pulls out all his vocal tricks. He bellows, whispers, pleads, and cajoles – not bad for a second encore!

A sideways grooved and almost folk style “Gloria,” closes the evening. The crowd claps in hard time and Morrison raps while Wingfield adds a progressive touch to the garage classic. Morrison pleads, “Turn it up!” and the band does just that running over the changes until the song climaxes in a off the rails conclusion.

In a career that now spans over six decades, Morrison’s musical output features several cupboards to be opened and scrapbooks to be investigated. Within these hidden locations are surprising new musical moments of compositional insight and instrumental magic to be discovered. The fall of 1974 is one of the periods that sometimes slips through the cracks of Morrison’s massive assemblage and disappears under the weight of his prolific artistry. But thanks to the available recordings made by fearless fans, these important moments are captured for posterity and investigation.