Ron McClure Quintet - Descendants (1980)

Recorded in New York in July 1980. I participated in the work of Ron McClure, who was also with the Dave Liebman Quintet. Originally recorded for New Zealand's Ode Records, it was released by Ken Music when it was made into a CD. I read the liner notes, I couldn't find the word "Ode Records". Moreover, the album title has been changed from the original "Home Base" to "Descendants", and the jacket has been redesigned. What makes this CD great is that it has 2 more songs than the analog version, and the sound source was remixed in March 1990! I don't need analog records except for collectors. John Scofield has played a very notch performance over the whole volume, and it is by far the best guest participation work recorded in 1980. And Tom Harrell's flugelhorn is good! Maybe it's a synergistic effect, John Scofield and the trumpeter originally had a great compatibility, and Tom's play inspired him to play lively. ~ JohnScoMania, johnscomania.blog.com. 

Ken Music, 660-56-007, 1992
Recorded July, 1980 at Garden Studio, New York City 

Musicians:
Ron McClure - Acoustic Bass, Solo (#6)
Tom Harrell - Flugelhorn
John Scofield - Guitar
Mark Gray - Piano [Electric]
Jimmy Madison - Drums 

Tracks:
1. Boat People (8:37)
2. Dance Of The Scorpion (6:40)
3. Descendants (7:15)
4. Scorpitarius (8:46)
5. Line (5:32)
6. Life Isn't Everything (2:49)
7. Sunny Day (4:59)
8. The Calling (7:03)
9. M Street Shuffle (5:05) 

All compositions and arrangements by Ron McClure 

Total Time: 56:48 

Credits:
Producer, Liner Notes - Ron McClure
Executive Producer - Ken Fujiwara
Recording, Mixing, Editing & Remix - James H. Madison
Design & Edit - Peacock Pii 

Sunny Day

Miroslav Vitous - Guardian Angels (1979)

"Guardian Angels" showcases the comprehensive talent of virtuoso bassist, Miroslav Vitous. It puts on full display his incredible talent on electric and acoustic basses (with and without bow). One of the things that I thoroughly enjoy about this music is that it dispels the claim, attributed to former band mate and co-founder of Weather Report, Josef Zawinul, that Vitous couldn’t bring the “bottom”. On every track here, he brings it. ~ Matt Seahorn, Amazon.com. 

As a big Miroslav Vitous fan, this album is extremely satisfying outing and captures a late 70s snapshot of fusion. To start, it features a future member of his group, Kenny Kirkland, on keyboards, John Scofield sounds great on guitar and brings two originals. It also features two Japanese members who Miroslav made a few albums with; George Otsuka on drums and Mabumi Yamaguchi is on soprano sax, who were involved in two Maracaibo albums, the album Mabumi, and keyboardist Fumio Karashima's Hot Island. I'd recommend the original Evidence edition of this album, it's affordable and has great liner notes recalling first-hand details from the recording. Enjoy! ~ Frank G, Amazon.com. 

Trio Records, PAP-9154, 1979
Evidence Records, ECD 22055, 1993
Recorded 9th, 10th, 11th November, 1978 At Onkio Haus, Tokyo, Japan 

Musicians:
Miroslav Vitous - Bass, Electric Bass, Synthesizer [Mini-Moog, Solina String-Ensemble]
Mabumi Yamaguchi - Soprano Saxophone
Kenny Kirkland - Piano, Electric Piano [Fender Rhodes, Yamaha CP-70 [Electric Grand],
Synthesizer [Yamaha CS-50 (Polyphonic), Mini-Moog]
John Scofield - Guitar
George Ohtsuka - Drums [Yamaha] 

Tracks:
1. His Meaning / Rising / Resolution {Miroslav Vitous} (8:38)
2. Inner Peace {Kenny Kirkland} (6:10)
3. Guardian Angels {Miroslav Vitous} (5:54)
4. Off To Buffalo {John Scofield} (7:52)
5. Eating It Raw {John Scofield} (6:15)
6. Shinkansen {Kenny Kirkland} (6:11) 

Total Time: 40:03 

Credits:
Producer, Engineer - David Baker
Producer - Ken Inaoka
Music Director - Miroslav Vitous
Engineer [Assistant] - Takashi Ogawa
Production Coordinator - Kaz Harada
Management – Hiroaki Itoh, Mamoru Kamekawa
Photography - Shigeru Uchiyama, Yasuhisa Yoneda
Design - Breakfast 

This is another example of the type of 'fusion' that was going on in NYC in the late 70's. It was popular then for Japanese artists to hire the top guys on the scene, make a record and be big stars in their home country. This CD is cool in that we hear a young Kenny Kirkland burning on electric keyboards. Kenny was 'the cat' to be reckoned with at this time. Scofield sounds good here too, although he sounds better on Chet Baker's 'can't go home again' and his own CD 'Live', also 'Rough House' which I think were recorded around the same time. The music is basically, pentatonic scales or whatever, played in unison really fast then solos: either up-tempo samba vamps or medium tempo funk groove. It's OK I guess...if you are a Kirkland or Scofield fan. ~ Wes Green, Amazon.com.

BeatleJazz - With A Little Help From Our Friends (2005)

Let me be the first to admit that I am prejudiced against jazz musicians covering the Beatles. This is in no way related to the source material: like all sentient mammals on the Planet Earth, I adore pretty much every note the Fabs recorded. It's just that their material is so weighted with cultural and nostalgic baggage that (unlike standards like, say, "All the Things You Are" it retains too much of its Beatleness to be just a set of chords: it's them. Or it's us - Abbey Road and Revolver have inhabited our collections so long that they're intertwined in our lives. It only took Dave Kikoski's gorgeous piano intro and Brian Melvin's hypnotic tabla pattern on "Yes It Is", the opening track of BeatleJazz's third CD, With a Little Help From Our Friends, to confound my cynical expectations. BeatleJazz is composed of Melvin on drums and tablas, Kikoski on piano and synth, and Larry Grenadier on bass. The core group is augmented by the "friends of the CD's title: John Scofield and Mike Stern on guitar; Mike and Randy Brecker on tenor sax and trumpet, respectively; and on four tracks, Boris Koslov substituted on bass. The results are for the most part delightful. Many jazz-covers-rock albums allow the musicians to sleepwalk through bland, jazz-lite arrangements, content to let the familiarity of the material sell the product. Not here: the performances teem with deep concentration and the arrangements are imaginative and very, very smart. For example, "Strawberry Fields Forever" sheds the baroque studio experimentation of the 1967 single but is otherwise played straight. Kikoski's piano does the melodic heavy lifting, and when the group plays the coda (Grenadier's bowed bass taking the place of the groaning strings of the original), one is struck dumb by how wonderful, how novel that section of the song is. The lack of harmonic development on John Lennon's solo rant "Working Class Hero" is dealt with by going pedal-point: Mike Brecker and Kikoski channel Coltrane and McCoy Tyner, respectively, and remake the song as a searching, beseechingly modal ten-minute prayer. Not everything is that wonderful. Randy Brecker and Kikoski do their best on Lennon's "Imagine", and very nearly pull it off - not surprisingly, as a ballad - but here the song is just too intractable. Even though it's a solo Lennon composition, its utopian sentiment makes it the most Beatle number here in the way it signifies so much more than its words or melody. Brecker's playing that melody so faithfully, right down to the two notes of Lennon's vocal "you-hoo", doesn't help. On the other hand, John Scofield absolutely nails "I Will"; this Paul McCartney number's chords lend themselves well to jazz and Sco's solo is the best he's done in some time - sweet, spacious, and wise. It's a tribute to the quality of this album that my unfortunate bigotries could be so thwarted. Too bad BeatleJazz can't immediately do another CD: I'm eager to hear their versions of "All Things Must Pass" and "She Said She Said". ~ by Paul Olson, AAJ. 

Lightyear Entertainment, LTY 54685-2, 2005
Recorded 20th April, 2003 at:
Peter Karl's Studio, Brooklyn, New York
System Two Studios, Brooklyn, New York 

Musicians:
Dave Kikoski - Piano, Synthesizer, Arranger
Larry Grenadier - Bass
Boris Koslov - Bass
Brian Melvin - Drums, Tabla, Arranger 

Guests:
Michael Brecker - Saxophone (#6)
Randy Brecker - Trumpet (#3)
John Scofield - Guitar (#2,5)
Mike Stern - Guitar (#7,10) 

Tracks:
01. Yes It Is {John Lennon, Paul McCartney} (7:32)
02. Piggies {George Harrison} (7:52)
03. Imagine {John Lennon} (9:54)
04. Strawberry Fields Forever {John Lennon, Paul McCartney} (4:59)
05. I Will {John Lennon, Paul McCartney} (8:09)
06. Working Class Hero {John Lennon} (11:03)
07. A Hard Day's Night {John Lennon, Paul McCartney} (5:55)
08. Across The Universe {John Lennon, Paul McCartney} (4:36)
09. Lovely Rita {John Lennon, Paul McCartney} (5:16)
10. And I Love Her {John Lennon, Paul McCartney} (5:50)
11. The End {John Lennon, Paul McCartney} (4:04)
12. Chains {Gerry Goffin, Carole King} (4:48) 

Total Time: 79:58 

Credits:
Producer - Dave Kikoski
Producer, Mixing, Liner Notes - Brian Melvin
Executive Producer - Hisao Ebine
Engineer - Peter Karl, Jon Rosenberg
Mastering - Matt Baxter
Cover Photo, Photography - Carl Studna
Photography - Takehiko Tokiwa
Art Direction, Package Design - Doug Haverty