Beautiful so unds from pianist Carla Bley – a musician who just keeps on blowing us away as the decades move on – and that's saying a hell of a lot, given how many years she's been making music! There's a really special quality to this record – a warmth and maybe just a slight touch of humor, but not in the overdone way of some of Carla's records from the 80s – much more subtle, and mixed with occasional currents of darkness – all handled with this understated sense of personality that perfectly showcases all three members of the group – Bley on piano, Steve Swallow on bass, and Andy Sheppard on tenor and soprano saxes. Swallow maybe sounds more wonderful here than we've heard in years – the record is a great reminder of how many great contributions he can make to music – and titles include the longer cycles of songs "Life Goes On", "Copycat", and "Beautiful Telephones (parts 1 to 3)". ~ Dusty Groove
Fantastic Fender Rhodes from Yusuke Hirado – plus a fair bit of other keyboards too – all delivered in a set that mixes 70s space jazz funk with some great contemporary elements, and in a way that's nicely different than Hirado's work in the group Quasimode! The set's got some old school rhythms, but plenty more moments that soar and take off with very contemporary cosmic energy – very strongly in a jazz perspective overall, but with a strong knowledge of all the other musical changes that have taken place on the hipper scenes around the globe over the past 20 years – woven into classic keyboard sounds that take on a whole new shape in the setting! Titles include "The Kicker", "Early Bird", "Sonar", "Blue Sky", "Circle", "Galaxy Highway", and "Heady Dayz". ~ Dusty Groove
Maybe the only album ever issued under the name of trumpeter Gary Chandler – but a smoking little set that rivals some of the best jazz funk records at the start of the 70s – including heavyweight classics on Prestige by Melvin Sparks, Leon Spencer, and Boogaloo Joe Jones! The feel here is very similar to those – given that the short-lived Eastbound label not only featured production work from Bob Porter, who handled the best Prestige funk sets – but also because the lineup here is filled with some of the top contemporaries from that scene – including Harold Ousley on tenor, Caesar Frazier on Hammond, Cornell Dupree on guitar, Dick Griffin on trombone, and the mighty Idris Muhammad on drums! Idris keeps things nice and funky, and tracks are long, and filled with smoking solos – the most famous of which is the album's cover of "Baby Let Me Take You In My Arms", with an excellent break intro – which has been sampled heavily over the years – alongside the tracks "The Jet Set", "Blues Dues", and "Kaleidoscope". ~ Dusty Groove
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