THE JIMI HENDRIX EXPERIENCE: AXIS - BOLD AS LOVE

Axis:Bold as Love followed the monstrous achievement of the previous album,released just a few months earlier in the magical year of 1967.If the Monterey Pop Festival helped the success of Jimi Hendrix's career by introducing the Experience to the USA,this album came to confirm Hendrix as a true icon of the late 60's musical scene,side by side with anti-Vietnam heroes such as Bob Dylan and more obscurely The Doors.

It's curious that some may claim it was released in a premature way,given the fact that it's one of the best produced albums of the 60s.If Are You Experienced was the recorded statement of a series of stage constructed numbers,Axis is properly a studio album with mellower songs,focused in the whole trio of virtuosos intead of the guitar god alone.In fact,Hendrix's contribution to the album is much less dominant,which may take away some the fist album's fury and rawness,but helps creating a balance worthy of a proto-prog album,specially in the wonderfully melodic title track and the classic Castles Made of Sand.

Little Wing is part of the eletric guitar's basic vocabulary,for each and every person who ever attempted to learn the instrument knows this short tune's introduction is one of the most inseresting joints of rythm and melody ever forged.Only the song lenght is somewhat frustrating,considering some less than average tracks(for instance Wait Until Tomorrow,Up From The Skies) could have been kept out in favor of longer developments of the true gems this album contains.And there's of course place for a hippie workout,which unforntunately is the logest track in the album,named If 6 was 9.

Despite the clear tenderness of the compositions(led by an equally softer voice),the best moment of Axis has to be the extremely heavy Spanish Castle Magic,a song wich takes out the best of psychedelia and gives us a sample of an era,extremely exciting and no longer than exact three minutes.

If ever The Jimi Hendrix Experience was close to the most primitive form of prog,it was here.Guitars take a step back in favor of most band oriented compositions,slightly softer and much mellower throughout.For what this supernaturaly gifted guitarist best qualities are worth,Axis is perhaps a bit of a slip.But it couldn't possibly be so,because Hedrix was conscient he was sacrificing space in the music in favor of a better album,perhaps the Experience best moment as a group.There would be enough place in the following recording for Jimi to immortalize his abilities over a Fender Stratocaster bringing it up forth again,but the best to do here is to enjoy what is perhaps the best trio of the 60's psychedelia,Cream being the only possible contender.