- The Melvin Sparks Band - The Governor
- Papa John DeFrancesco - GF’s Attitude
- Rodney Jones - Live Bait
- David fathead Newman - Off the Hook
- Joey DeFrancesco - The Cat
- Randy Johnson - The Hat Man
- Bill Heid - Peach Cobbler
- Houston Person - Sweet Sucker
- The Melvin Sparks Band - Another Joe
This is the second HighNote compilation I
have had for review this month, and as with
the former it left me wishing I could hear
the whole of the albums that these tracks
are taken from. HighNote have taken funky
items from each album, but are the whole albums
like that?
The opening track is a bright funk with some
fine jazz organ from George Papageorge and
some good guitar playing from Melvin Sparks
the leader. The saxophone playing is not as
good, particularly the freaky tenor playing,
but the ensemble playing is neat.
and tidy. The same remarks would apply to
track 2.
Track 3 is a bit different and Rodney Jones’s
guitar playing is well worth listening to,
but again the line up of instruments is pretty
much the same on tracks 1 to 4 and they all
sound similar.
Thankfully David Newman’s Group is the next
one up and his Tenor/Vibraphone front line
is much more pleasurable to my ears Brian
Carrott is the Vibes player and there is some
excellent Piano playing from Bruce Barth.
Joey De Francesco’s Trio on track 5, is helped
along by having Randy Johnson on Guitar, but
it is pretty well organ all the way. Randy
Johnson takes on the leader mantle on track
on track 6 and thankfully we are back to some
great swinging jazz grooves! Joe Locke plays
some fine vibes on this track.
Houston Person’s fine Tenor sound is heard
to good effect and once again thankfully the
funk is once again not allowed to swamp the
jazz content. The funk is back with a vengeance
on track 9.
Just how much you enjoy this record will
really depend on whether you are a jazz funk
fan. I enjoyed the bits in between!
Don Mather
CD Reviews
HIGHNOTE RECORDS HCD 6011
