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2/19/2010
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the tale. This is not your grandfather’s Gil. Gone are the alternating militant jazz and soothing Fender Rhodes. In their place are ghostly industrial tracks provided by alternative rock producer Richard Russell (also owner of XL Records). Over those tracks, Brother Gil drops one the most blood-curdling spoken word blues albums ever committed to CD. I’m talking hair-raising sung covers of Robert Johnson’s “Me and The Devil” and Bobby Blue Bland’s “I’ll Take Care of You,” arresting poems such as “Where Did the Night Go,” “The Crutch” and particularly “Running.” The only relief comes at the opening and closing bookends “On Coming From a Broken Home” on which he shares his love for the women in his life; his mother and grandmother. Though the project clocks in at just over a half hour, it wipes you out like a 3-CD set of Cecil Taylor would. For maximum effect, I dare you to listen to it alone…in the dark.
BY A. SCOTT GALLOWAY Urban Network Music Editor
Seawind REUNION (Seawind Jazz)
Growing up, it was so inspiring to discover a band of amazing musicians embracing Christian themes of faith and brotherhood and turning these sentiments into some of the funkiest and hottest soul-jazz-pop music imaginable. With so much talent in the band – from leader drummer Bob Wilson and lead singer Pauline Wilson to master horn arranger/brass man Jerry Hey and keyboardist/saxophonist/composer Larry Williams, it was sadly inevitable that they would not stay together for long. This pioneering 7piece band formed in Hawaii got four amazing albums onto the market from 1976-1981 before calling it quits. Last month, I was thrilled to find out that not only are the group’s dynamic first two albums available on CD (Seawind and Window of a Child, originally recorded for CTI), but 6 of the 7 members also recorded a wonderful new CD titled Reunion their first full release in 20 years! Appropriately, it contains both new songs plus new arrangements of past gems such as “He Loves You” (f/ special guest and fan Al Jarreau), “The Devil is a Liar,” “Follow Your Road” and “Free.” I am thrilled to report that the new music continues the compositional depth and emotional commitment of the classics that came before. Highlights include the funky bass-driven groove “You’re My Everything,” an instrumental tribute to the great Wayne Shorter (titled “Wayne”) and the gorgeous “Sunshadow.” Only officially released in Japan for now, the CD is nonetheless available to all via the Website www.seawindjazz.com. Be looking for my interview with the reunited soul soothers soon on our Website.
Alex Bugnon GOING HOME (Xela)
For two decades, Swiss-born keyboardist Alex Bugnon has been a romantic yet energetic force on the contemporary jazz scene - in possession of chameleonic skills befitting him as a straight ahead jazz piano leader and as a soul sideman. On his new album Going Home, he boldly explores that music – his first love – more explicitly than ever before. From originals inspired by his early idols Horace Silver and Ahmad Jamal to covers of old favorites from WAR’s “The World is a Ghetto” and Herbie Hancock’s “Oliloqui Valley,” to an adaptation of “Nothra Dona di Maortse” (a song he discovered at his father’s funeral), the 8-song project taps deep roots from multiple plains. “Going Home represents me returning to what I really love to do…which is to play as hard as I possibly can,” he states. Joining him for this careerredefining project are old friends Poogie Bell on drums and Victor Bailey on bass, among others. This is the best album of Bugnon’s catalog, thus far, and the first on his own Xela Records imprint. Support this!
Gil Scott-Heron
Cindy Blackman
I’M NEW HERE
ANOTHER LIFETIME
(XL)
(4Q)
Drummer Cindy Blackman has had an enviable career as a touring musician with rocker Lenny Kravitz, as a side woman for many jazz artists and as a leader in her own right for albums that have stretched from straight ahead jazz to forward thinking contemporary projects such as her previous double-disc Music for the New Millennium. Her latest CD finds her paying tribute to the most influential musician of her lifetime, Tony Williams. Williams, who died unnecessarily at 51 due to health facility neglect, was a drummer of galvanizing power and ceaselessly searching musical ambition. Miles Davis praised him for pushing any musician he played with to their highest potential. Blackman’s reverence is palpable on Another Lifetime, on which she reexamines many of the pieces he created in his pioneering and chameleonic jazz-rock fusion unit band The Tony Williams Lifetime. It takes guts to even attempt covering this music – the originals of which literally crackle with electricity and the rawness of freshly chiseled granite. This recording is a little too polished in places, but Blackman never ceases to bring the fire to the proceedings, representing her mentor to the fullest. She made some interesting choices, particularly as it came to including (or not) the lyrics on classics such as “Beyond Games” and “There Comes a Time.” But she plumbs Tony’s singular gift for funk in her original spoken word piece “40 years of Innovation,” flies free in a sax/drums duet with Joe Lovano on “Love Song” (from Tony’s avant garde ‘60s Blue Note period) and especially on the third of three versions of “Vashkar” titled “The Alternate Dimension Theory” where she and the band stretch into the outer limits. I imagine Tony smiling down after hearing this one and offhandedly remarking, “Yeah…sharing.” Musicians include Mike Stern, Vernon Reid, Doug Carn, Carlton Holmes, Benny Rietveld, David Santos…and Patrice Rushen on a majestic “Wildlife.”
Gil Scott-Heron scared me half to death the first time I heard I’m New Here, the word shaman’s first work in 15 years. As I listened long past the witching hour…under cover of darkness…alone, this work literally sounded like what it is - a once powerful black man that’s been to Hell and back and lived to tell
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VOLUME 19 NUMBER 8