If you are a diehard follower of The Who, the name Simon
\nPhillips will sound familiar; he became the band’s third drummer,
\nfilling the stool for the group’s 1989 reunion tour.<\/p>\n
If you’re a follower of progressive rock, you know the little
\nNew York-based Magna Carta Records as being one of the leaders in
\nits genre, supporting groups that you might not otherwise have
\nheard of.<\/p>\n
Put these two together, and you’ve got… jazz?!? Light
\njazz?!?<\/p>\n
Believe it. On
\nAnother Lifetime<\/i>, Phillips assembles a wonderful team of
\nmusicians who bring some of this album’s nine cuts to life. And
\nwhile a few portions of the disc drag, it will be a surprising
\nchange of pace for the listener – even if we shouldn’t be surprised
\nthat Phillips has chosen to go in such a direction.<\/p>\n
On this all-instrumental album, Phillips does the wise thing by
\nrelegating his role in the group to being part of the backbone, not
\nthe in-front leader. For that matter, it would be hard to call any
\nmember of this seven-piece group a leader. Each member – guitarists
\nAndy Timmons and Ray Russel, bassist Anthony Jackson, keyboardist
\nJeff Babko, saxophonist Wendell Brooks and percussionist Peter
\nMichael Escovedo – gets their own opportunity to shine at different
\njunctures on
\nAnother Lifetime<\/i>.<\/p>\n
It’s around the halfway point of the album, specifically on the
\ntrack “Kumi Na Moja,” that the band snaps into perfect formation,
\nand the music becomes one big groove. It sometimes feels like I’m
\nlistening to a group like Spyro Gyra or Weather Report as these
\nsongs develop, a feeling that is by no means a negative one. Even
\nif you entered this disc expecting the thunderous rock drumming or
\nspacey progressive rock, you’d be hard pressed to not be moved by
\nthese jams.<\/p>\n
Yes, it does take a little time for this whole concept to take
\nroot with the listener; tracks like “Jungleyes,” “Freudian Slip”
\nand “P.O.V.,” by no means bad tracks, are periods of adjustment for
\nthe listener. Don’t be surprised if you feel like you need a quick
\nbreather from the disc by the time “Eyes Blue For You” winds
\ndown.<\/p>\n
\nAnother Lifetime<\/i> is the kind of disc that is going to get
\npeople who wouldn’t otherwise listen to “smooth jazz” interested in
\nthe genre, for Phillips and his crew do an impressive job with this
\nmaterial. Don’t worry if you don’t feel like you appreciated it
\nafter the first listen; this is the kind of album that has to grow
\non you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27479,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[7342],"rating":[5615],"class_list":["post-38852","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-simon-phillips","rating-rating-b"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38852","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=38852"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38852\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27479"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38852"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=38852"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=38852"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}