BOB BERG - New Birth
Xanadu Master Edition906085
Bob Berg - tenor sax; Tom Harrell - trumpet and flugelhorn; Cedar Walton - piano and rhodes; Mike Richmond - bass and bass guitar; Sam Figueroa - conga and percussion; Al Foster - drums
The tenor saxist Bob Berg was the archetypal post-hard bop New Yorker, combining a steely attack with an encyclopaedic harmonic knowledge and flawless time, able to slip between Coltrane style intensity and smooth soul-jazz licks with ease. Had not a tragically early death intervened, he might well have challenged Michael Brecker for the title of ubiquitous king of the 1980s tenor. This, his debut album, finds him in the company of a top-flight crowd of New York hot-shots who are completely in tune with his ferociously accomplished precision take on the way jazz was sounding at the cutting edge of the 1978 mainstream. Cedar Walton was his employer at the time, and already well established as a player and composer - Harrell, who contributes two tunes, was very much a rising star, as was Foster, about to make waves as the beat behind Miles’ triumphant return (in which Berg also played a brief role) - his solo breaks on ‘Pauletta’ are astonishing in their speed and power.
The writing is a characteristic of it’s era and location - in amongst the modal jazz there’s ‘Neptune’ showing the influence of the burgeoning salsa scene, and ‘Shapes’ laying down some complex altered-scale Breckerish funk. The arrangements are as slick and the playing as hot and precise as you’d expect. Despite the clean studio sound - Mike Richmond's virtuoso double bass playing has been made to sound like a fretless electric - there’s an attractive warmth to the recording that makes this a lot of fun to listen to, even if some of the chat-show jazzfunk mannerisms now sound rather dated - by contrast, ‘Magic Carpet’ shows what a great, challenging composer Harrell was even at this early stage in his career. This re-package for Xanadu has been well conceived, with a quality package and 16-page booklet and a nice remaster for CD, which this classy album eminently deserves.
Reviewed by Eddie Myer
Xanadu Master Edition906085
Bob Berg - tenor sax; Tom Harrell - trumpet and flugelhorn; Cedar Walton - piano and rhodes; Mike Richmond - bass and bass guitar; Sam Figueroa - conga and percussion; Al Foster - drums
The tenor saxist Bob Berg was the archetypal post-hard bop New Yorker, combining a steely attack with an encyclopaedic harmonic knowledge and flawless time, able to slip between Coltrane style intensity and smooth soul-jazz licks with ease. Had not a tragically early death intervened, he might well have challenged Michael Brecker for the title of ubiquitous king of the 1980s tenor. This, his debut album, finds him in the company of a top-flight crowd of New York hot-shots who are completely in tune with his ferociously accomplished precision take on the way jazz was sounding at the cutting edge of the 1978 mainstream. Cedar Walton was his employer at the time, and already well established as a player and composer - Harrell, who contributes two tunes, was very much a rising star, as was Foster, about to make waves as the beat behind Miles’ triumphant return (in which Berg also played a brief role) - his solo breaks on ‘Pauletta’ are astonishing in their speed and power.
The writing is a characteristic of it’s era and location - in amongst the modal jazz there’s ‘Neptune’ showing the influence of the burgeoning salsa scene, and ‘Shapes’ laying down some complex altered-scale Breckerish funk. The arrangements are as slick and the playing as hot and precise as you’d expect. Despite the clean studio sound - Mike Richmond's virtuoso double bass playing has been made to sound like a fretless electric - there’s an attractive warmth to the recording that makes this a lot of fun to listen to, even if some of the chat-show jazzfunk mannerisms now sound rather dated - by contrast, ‘Magic Carpet’ shows what a great, challenging composer Harrell was even at this early stage in his career. This re-package for Xanadu has been well conceived, with a quality package and 16-page booklet and a nice remaster for CD, which this classy album eminently deserves.
Reviewed by Eddie Myer
