Consumer Guide Album

Derek and the Dominos: The Layla Sessions [Polydor, 1990]
Sloughing off the myth of the album as artistic unit and denying proven spendthrifts a face-saving shred of consumerly discrimination, CD boxes are invariably about marketing rather than music. But this triple smells. Supposedly necessitated by the slovenliness of Layla's first digital remix, still for sale as a "special-price" double-CD even though the same material squeezes onto one disc here, it pretends that Eric Clapton's finest pickup band--which as the notes inadvertently remind us begat George Harrison's endless All Things Must Pass (you remember "Apple Jam," now don't you?)--deserves the kind of genius treatment that's dubious even with great jazz improvisors. And since it unearths not much Duane Allman (no surprise, since he barely met the band), it cheats on the dueling-guitars fireworks that made Layla explode. This is pop, gang--arrangements matter. Outtakes are outtakes because the keepers are better. Jams take too long to get anywhere worth going. And when a mix trades raunch for definition, the exchange is usually moot. B-