Danny Federici has nothing to prove… and everything to
\nprove.<\/p>\n
Having spent over a decade as the keyboardist for Bruce
\nSpringsteen’s celebrated E-Street Band, there’s no questioning his
\ntalent behind the ivories. Just listen to songs like “Born To Run”
\nor “Born In The USA” and hear the voice that Federici added to
\nthose numbers.<\/p>\n
But just as much as his background speaks for itself, Federici
\nalso has to face the challenging question: is he capable of making
\nquality music without Springsteen? The answer lies on
\nFlemington<\/i>, his first solo album… and the answer is yes,
\nbut don’t look for an E-Street repeat here.<\/p>\n
Federici does invite two of his old bandmates to help him
\nestablish his own musical voice – Nils Lofgren contributes guitar
\nto two tracks, and Garry Tallent to a pair as well (though both do
\nnot appear together on any track – smart move). The cast of
\nmusicians varies throughout the album, but the most common players
\nare guitarist John DeFuria (who is underutilized in my opinion),
\nbassist Shem Schroeck (who can lay down quite a funky groove),
\npercussionist Charles Slone and drummer Tony Braunagel.<\/p>\n
Federici seems content to be a voice of the band more often than
\na featured instrument. There are times when his piano work stands
\nout among the performances, and his accordion work often takes the
\nvoice of a singer. But Federici isn’t stupid – he realizes his
\nbandmates are as intregal a part of the music as his keyboard
\nwork.<\/p>\n
For a good half of the album, Federici and crew craft some fine
\nmusic that borders on new-age and light pop rather than the
\narena-rock that made his occasional-still employer famous. The
\ntitle track adds only bass (here provided by Jim Hanson) and drums
\nto create a peppy opener to the album – and occasionally reminds me
\nnot only of his E-Street Band work, but also keyboard-driven
\ntelevision theme songs. (This is not necessarily a bad thing – I
\nhappened to like the theme music from “St. Elsewhere” – so there!)
\n“Pennsylvania Avenue” also has the same magic, though here the
\npiano line is especially highlighted – and for good reason.<\/p>\n
There are many solid performances on
\nFlemington<\/i>. “In The Next Five Minutes” has Federici getting
\nboth funky and bluesy (is that a word?) on the piano, something I
\nwish he had done more often. His piano’s trading off with the sax
\nwork of Joe Sublett is especially interesting. “Egg Beater” is also
\na fun track to listen to, one that doesn’t seem to last as long as
\nthe time sheet says. Also creating interesting moods are “Mr.
\nContinental” and “My Little Cow”.<\/p>\n
But the problem with
\nFlemington<\/i> is that Federici doesn’t seem to want to
\nconstantly challenge himself. While he successfully breaks out of
\nthe “Bruce” mode, he seems content to just play light jazz with not
\nmuch frills, thank you very much. Because of this, by the middle of
\nthe album things tend to stagnate a bit. “A Doorman’s Life,” a song
\nwhich is supposed to be a loving tribute to Federici’s father,
\nfails to do much for me. Likewise, “Carousel Breeze” and “Round
\n& Round” don’t connect after a while – one almost wishes that
\nFederici would turn up the intensity on these tracks just a
\nlittle.<\/p>\n
And it’s not that
\nFlemington<\/i> is a bad album; it is, in fact, better than many
\nsmooth jazz albums I’ve listened to over the years. But its
\nweakness is that it fails to break new ground – maybe this was due
\nto Federici’s wanting to escape from Springsteen’s shadow. Well,
\nthis has been accomplished – now what? I’ve listened to this disc
\nthree times just before writing this review, and still I find
\nmyself waiting for the real fireworks to begin. (Fortunately,
\nthere’s a small taste of this on “Pennsylvania Avenue”, but not
\nenough to whet my appetite.)<\/p>\n
I have no doubts that Federici will continue to thrive as a solo
\nmusician, and
\nFlemington<\/i> is a great portrait of his talents as a
\nsongwriter and keyboardist. But going for the vanilla is okay the
\nfirst time around – here’s hoping he’ll throw a little pepper sauce
\ninto the mix the next time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27289,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[7242],"rating":[5612],"class_list":["post-38653","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-danny-federici","rating-rating-b-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38653","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38653"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38653\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27289"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38653"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=38653"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=38653"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}