1. Surprise 4; 2. Where I got my groove; 3. Lost and Found; 4. Origami; 5. To B. Rich; 6. Summertime; 7. That's all there is to it; 8. Roundabout; 9. Surprise 5
Chris West: all saxes; John Paul Frappier: trumpet; Oscar Utterstrom: Trombone; Peter Hyrka: Violin & Viola; Gary Tussing: Cello; Chris Patterson: Percussion; Derek Phillips: Drums, except on track 4: Nioshi Jackson & track 6: Pete Abbott; Greg Bryant: Bass, except tracks 4 & 6: Jerry Navarro; Paul Horton: Electric piano tracks 1,5 & 9; Mason Embry track 3 and Elijah DD Holt track 4; Charles Treadway: tracks 2, 6, 7; Elijah DD Holt track 4; Chris West track 5; Adam Agati: Guitar tracks 1,2,4,5,7,9; Ben Graves track 3 and Bill Elder track 6; Charles Walker: Vocals track 6; Jeff Coffin: Sax track 3 and Cord Martin track 6.
Rec. between August 2008 and January 2010 at NavarroNation and Jazzmanic Studios, Nashville, Tennessee, USA.
This record was self produced by Chris West and no record company information or code is given but contact and discs purchased through Chris' website: www.jazzmanic.com
If you like your jazz funky then this is definitely going to make you smile and tap your feet. Chris West who mastered in jazz studies and now teaches is a considerable player and this disc is the first of a projected trilogy. He is ably accompanied by a whole gamut of musicians and the music is infectious. All compositions are by Chris West, sometimes together with others, apart from Gershwin's Summertime presented here in a somewhat overblown version with soul singer Charles Walker drawing out the final words too much for my liking, making the version rather too contrived. Overall I enjoyed the disc much to my own surprise (is there a clue in the disc's title?). However, there is no information about Chris or anyone else on the disc and the track listings are also a bit too clever for their own good and presented me with a problem as track one is listed as 19 (and so it goes on) and that continues with the listing of who plays what on which track - most confusing! It'll be interesting to hear what the rest of the project turns out to be - will it be a development or just more of the same...we await the answer with interest.
Steve Arloff
CD Reviews
SA8
