Top of the week in New/Old: The Jimi Hendrix Experience

At long last, the full April 26, 1969 show at the Los Angeles Forum is released

Today brings a gem: The full 80-minute Jimi Hendrix Experience performance from the Los Angeles Forum in April 1969. Portions of the show have been available before, on various compilations, but this represents the first time the source audio has been completely remixed, by the veteran Hendrix producer and archivist Eddie Kramer.

The audio attention to detail is crucial in matters Hendrix, given the blurry, unsatisfying (sometimes unauthorized) live records that have surfaced since the icon’s death. This one is thrillingly crisp. It offers a vivid account of the bludgeoning power of this rhythm section as well as a wonderfully tactile, full-frequency rendering of Hendrix’ kaleidoscopic approach to guitar, which traveled from clean, peaking, ear-burning leads to ruthless rhythm-guitar crunch and all points in between.

As he’s tuning up, Hendrix makes like a blissed-out New Age guru, encouraging listeners to forget about everything that happened before and embrace the moment. “OK then, OK, we’re all at church, alright?,” he says before launching a wonderfully loose extended jam through “Tax Free.” The show captures the Experience (Hendrix, drummer Mitch Mitchell and bassist Noel Redding) shortly before the trio’s demise, and demonstrates how unified the three were, and how that unity contributed to Hendrix’ singular loose-and-tight-at-the-same-time rhythm approach. This is audible on inventive, hardly-autopilot renditions of “Spanish Castle Magic,” “Purple Haze” and Cream’s “Sunshine of Your Love” as well as the extended set-closing “Voodoo Child (Slight Return).”

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