KEVIN EUBANKS - East West Time Line
Mack Avenue Records MAC1119
Kevin Eubanks (guitars) with Orrin Evans (piano & Rhodes) Dave Holland (bass) Nicholas Payton (trumpet) Jeff “Tain” Watts (drums) tracks 1 to 5, recorded NYC. Rene Camacho (bass) Mino Cinelu (percussion) Bill Pierce (tenor sax) Marvin “Smitty” Smith (drums) tracks 6 to10, recorded West Hills, California.
No dates given.
Eubanks was largely lost to the jazz world when in 1995 he took over Branford Marsalis’s job as bandleader on the `Tonight Show`, an American chat show hosted by comedian Jay Leno. That was, no doubt, a lucrative move for him but costly for his fans who had come to admire his distinctive harmonic style which he demonstrated to particularly memorable effect as a member of the Dave Holland quintet. Back on the boards and following his true metier he is once again making first class recordings in the company of an all-star coterie of musical colleagues of which this latest release is a fine example.
`East West Time Line` comprises two distinct sessions with different bands, one recorded in New York, the other California; hence the title. The first session recorded on the east coast is made up entirely of his original pieces and is, consequently, slightly more exploratory and ruminative than the second which features ballads and jazz standards. It is a device by which Eubanks is able to demonstrate all the facets of his musical personality and it works to provide the listener with an intriguingly varied bill of fare: rather as though ECM had produced the one and Blue Note, the other. The opening for the NYC session is a bouncy bop oriented vehicle entitled `Time Line` in which Eubanks displays his penchant for choppy tempo shifts, over which Payton soars and Holland holds together with steady, resonant pulse, poked and prodded by the volatile Watts. The following two numbers take on a much more introspective mien, `Watercolours` being an impressionistic musing for acoustic guitar and trumpet with gentle rhythmic support and `Poet` a combination of soft focus sounds from guitar and keyboards in pensive dialogue. The remaining pieces give all participants the opportunity to display their U.S.Ps with `Something About Nothing` offering a long ride-out coda of sustained combinative brilliance.
The Californian session finds our leader in a new band with ex-Messenger, Bill Pierce as the other solo voice on tenor and soprano sax. Eubanks carries all the harmonic work there being no keyboards and the Wes Montgomery lushness in his playing becomes more evident particularly so in a delicious version of Marvin Gaye’s `What’s Going On` ,featuring Pierce on soprano as does an attractive take on Ray Bryant’s old war horse `Cubano Chant` which simmers gently before reaching the boil. With the temperature controls being in the hands of two master percussionists you naturally expect a degree of heat but Eubanks has his thermostat set on mellow even when he`s funking things up and nothing is permitted to cloud the luminosity of his playing, an abiding characteristic that makes him such an important and original voice. I would aver that he is a romantic rather than a rocker and as if to to prove my point he ends the session in a gentle conversation with Pierce on the subject of `My One and Only Love` in which all the conventions of the tenor ballad are observed without making them sound, err, conventional – if you get my drift. To sum up: highly recommended.
Reviewed by Euan Dixon
Mack Avenue Records MAC1119
Kevin Eubanks (guitars) with Orrin Evans (piano & Rhodes) Dave Holland (bass) Nicholas Payton (trumpet) Jeff “Tain” Watts (drums) tracks 1 to 5, recorded NYC. Rene Camacho (bass) Mino Cinelu (percussion) Bill Pierce (tenor sax) Marvin “Smitty” Smith (drums) tracks 6 to10, recorded West Hills, California.
No dates given.
Eubanks was largely lost to the jazz world when in 1995 he took over Branford Marsalis’s job as bandleader on the `Tonight Show`, an American chat show hosted by comedian Jay Leno. That was, no doubt, a lucrative move for him but costly for his fans who had come to admire his distinctive harmonic style which he demonstrated to particularly memorable effect as a member of the Dave Holland quintet. Back on the boards and following his true metier he is once again making first class recordings in the company of an all-star coterie of musical colleagues of which this latest release is a fine example.
`East West Time Line` comprises two distinct sessions with different bands, one recorded in New York, the other California; hence the title. The first session recorded on the east coast is made up entirely of his original pieces and is, consequently, slightly more exploratory and ruminative than the second which features ballads and jazz standards. It is a device by which Eubanks is able to demonstrate all the facets of his musical personality and it works to provide the listener with an intriguingly varied bill of fare: rather as though ECM had produced the one and Blue Note, the other. The opening for the NYC session is a bouncy bop oriented vehicle entitled `Time Line` in which Eubanks displays his penchant for choppy tempo shifts, over which Payton soars and Holland holds together with steady, resonant pulse, poked and prodded by the volatile Watts. The following two numbers take on a much more introspective mien, `Watercolours` being an impressionistic musing for acoustic guitar and trumpet with gentle rhythmic support and `Poet` a combination of soft focus sounds from guitar and keyboards in pensive dialogue. The remaining pieces give all participants the opportunity to display their U.S.Ps with `Something About Nothing` offering a long ride-out coda of sustained combinative brilliance.
The Californian session finds our leader in a new band with ex-Messenger, Bill Pierce as the other solo voice on tenor and soprano sax. Eubanks carries all the harmonic work there being no keyboards and the Wes Montgomery lushness in his playing becomes more evident particularly so in a delicious version of Marvin Gaye’s `What’s Going On` ,featuring Pierce on soprano as does an attractive take on Ray Bryant’s old war horse `Cubano Chant` which simmers gently before reaching the boil. With the temperature controls being in the hands of two master percussionists you naturally expect a degree of heat but Eubanks has his thermostat set on mellow even when he`s funking things up and nothing is permitted to cloud the luminosity of his playing, an abiding characteristic that makes him such an important and original voice. I would aver that he is a romantic rather than a rocker and as if to to prove my point he ends the session in a gentle conversation with Pierce on the subject of `My One and Only Love` in which all the conventions of the tenor ballad are observed without making them sound, err, conventional – if you get my drift. To sum up: highly recommended.
Reviewed by Euan Dixon
