1. Full House
2. Groovin'
3. Ruthie
4. Snakes
5. Going Down Slow
6. The Peeper
7. In Case You Hadn't Noticed
8. Third Degree
9. First Song / Tango Blues
10. Put It Where You Want It
11. Shreveport Stomp
12. In A Sentimental Mood / Layla
13. Every Day I Have The Blues
Eric Clapton – Guitar
David Sanborn – Alto sax
Joe Sample – Piano
Marcus Miller – Electric bass, bass clarinet
Steve Gadd - Drums
Eric
Clapton? Surely he’s a rock musician, so what’s
he doing in the company of four jazz musicians?
Put aside any preconceptions, as the mix works
perfectly well. Clapton is primarily a blues
performer, and the blues is at the core of
jazz – one of its essential building-blocks.
Eric is a superb guitarist (admittedly owing
an obvious debt to B. B. King) and his virtuosity
blends seamlessly with the brilliance of the
other musicians, who are all masters of their
instruments. All four of his colleagues are
experienced in jazz and rock fusion. Steve
Gadd has played with the likes of Chick Corea,
the Brecker Brothers and Herbie Hancock (as
well as recording and touring with Eric Clapton);
Marcus Miller’s masterful electric bass can
handle funky tunes with ease; and Joe Sample
has covered all the bases since his work with
the Crusaders (originally the Jazz Crusaders).
Saxophonist David Sanborn has even recorded
with David Bowie and Bruce Springsteen - and
he worked with Eric Clapton on the scores
for the Lethal Weapon series of films.
Anyway,
all five play sympathetically together in
this concert, filmed at the Montreux Jazz
Festival in 1997. Having recently watched
some DVDs of old jazz concerts filmed in black-and-white,
I was slightly disappointed to find that this
more modern recording suffered from the jumpy
camerawork which bedevils many modern filmed
performances. The camera hops quickly from
one musician to another, seldom allowing us
to concentrate on what anyone is doing for
more than a brief period. A duet between Clapton
and Sample at the start of Ruthie is
filmed less restlessly, because only two men
are playing, but this is the exception rather
than the rule.
Bassist
Marcus Miller had the idea for this "Legends"
quintet, which appeared at eleven European
jazz festivals in 1997. It might be compared
to the "supergroups" of the 1960s,
which included a certain Mr Clapton in a band
called Cream. And the ensemble here proves
that, however you label them, musicians can
make beautiful music together if they are
sufficiently skilful and sensitive. Indeed,
they feed one another with stimulation and
inspiration.
The
concert opens in funky blues mode for the
first two tracks, where David Sanborn manages
to make his alto sound simultaneously sweet
and tough. Ruthie brings the temperature
down with some gentle interplay between Clapton
and Sample. The riff-based Snakes reverts
to funk, anchored by Marcus Miller’s solid-as-a-rock
bass and featuring an impressive drum solo
from Steve Gadd in his clipped style.
Going
Down Slow is close to traditional blues
territory, in which Clapton dominates the
proceedings with authoritative guitar and
pleasantly relaxed vocals. The Peeper
is a jauntily catchy blues theme. Then Eric
switches to acoustic guitar for the delicate
In Case You Hadn’t Noticed, with Sanborn’s
saxophone wailing plaintively. Eric returns
to electric guitar (and vocals) for the outspoken
Third Degree. One of the concert’s
highlights is a gutsy version of the Crusaders’
Put It Where You Want It, with Joe
Sample leading from the electric piano and
a heroic bass solo from Marcus Miller.
So
what do they do for an encore? Surprisingly,
Joe Sample performs a stride piano solo on
Shreveport Stomp, after which Marcus
Miller brings his bass clarinet on stage for
In a Sentimental Mood which segues
into Clapton’s trademark Layla. The
evening ends appropriately with a good old-fashioned
blues – Every Day I Have the Blues.
The sound quality is good and the DVD runs
for more than 100 minutes. Well worth buying
to watch and hear these legends in their own
lifetime.
Tony Augarde
CD Reviews
Eagle Vision
EREDV 487
