When is a jazz album not a jazz album?<\/p>\n
When Hank Crawford and Jimmy McGriff came together to record
\ntheir latest release
\nRoad Tested<\/i>, I’m sure their intentions were good enough.
\nCrawford’s alto sax and McGriff’s rolling organ lines were made to
\ngo together like Swiss cheese on a ham sandwich, but somewhere
\nalong the line, the jazz element was lost, replaced instead by a
\nlatent r&b vein.<\/p>\n
Don’t complain… it works.
\nRoad Tested<\/i> contains some very entertaining music – but the
\nreal star of the album might not be the two credited musicians on
\nthe spine of the CD. But, more on that later…<\/p>\n
Right from the first cut, it feels like Crawford and McGriff are
\na natural pairing, each playing off the other to create some great
\nmusic. Surprisingly, many of the songs on this disc were written
\nwith lyrics, such as “I Only Have Eyes For You,” but Crawford uses
\nhis saxophone to substitute for the vocals. Sometimes it works
\nwell, but there are times that the limits of the instrument (not
\nthe performer) are exposed for all to see.<\/p>\n
An example of the limits? Take the cover of “Caravan” – and
\nyes<\/i>, I know it’s always been an instrumental. As good as
\nCrawford is on the sax, there’s only so much the instrument can do,
\nand then it’s so much vibrato pumped into an instrument that I
\ndon’t think was ever meant to have vibrato. Again, that’s not
\nCrawford’s fault; this is something I’ve noticed more and more with
\njazz.<\/p>\n
But the lighthearted spirit of the sessions is what makes
\nRoad Tested<\/i> work so well. On songs like “Happy Feet,” “Mr.
\nP.C.” and the title track, this four-piece band swings like there’s
\nno tomorrow, often injecting touches of blues and soul into the
\nmusic. In a sense, they have created their own unique animal with
\nthis one – and it makes the hour it takes to listen to the disc fly
\nby.<\/p>\n
But the real hero of the sessions is neither Crawford nor
\nMcGriff. No, it’s guitarist Wayne Boyd, whose talents show from his
\nrhythmic fills to his controlled solos. If there’s anyone who
\ndeserved equal credit, it was Boyd, and I hope to hear more
\nperformances from him real soon. (Also worthy of note is drummer
\nBernard Purdie, who knows how to make a groove
\nswing<\/i>.)<\/p>\n
It’s not often that I find it difficult to describe the
\nexperience I had listening to an album for review purposes. But in
\nthe case of
\nRoad Tested<\/i>, it’s really difficult to describe something
\nthat you have to hear and feel to understand. And frankly, if
\nyou’re looking at getting a quick, painless education in jazz
\n(especially if you’ve got your feet planted in r&b), this is a
\ngreat disc to start with.<\/p>\n
Enough talk – slap this one on, and take it for a test drive
\nyourself.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27531,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[7362],"rating":[5615],"class_list":["post-38905","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-hank-crawford-jimmy-mcgriff","rating-rating-b"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38905","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=38905"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38905\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27531"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38905"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=38905"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=38905"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}