Olukayode Balogun 2008-06-05
22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
These dudes are my favourite jazz-fusion band ever. They (and the Pat Metheny Group) provided the soundtrack to my life right through the 90s. I cannot think of a significant time during that decade, whether they were good times or not so good times, when there wasn't some Yellowjackets tune or the other playing in the background or in my head.
But that was then and this is now. On paper, this new album sounds incredibly exciting. The band team up with Mike Stern, one of the most exciting jazz-fusion guitar players of his time and one of my firm favourites, for 10 new studio album tracks. This is not the first time Yellowjackets have injected guitar into their sound. They featured Robben Ford on some of their very early work and he appeared again on their 1994 album "Run For Your Life". They also joined forces with Lee Ritenour on a brilliant version of the Jobim tune "Mojave" on the 1997 "A Twist of Jobim" project.
Two of the songs are written by Stern, three by the band's horn man Bob Mintzer, one by bassist Jimmy Haslip, two by the keys man Russell Ferrante, one by Haslip & Mintzer and one by all four band members, including drummer Marcus Baylor.
But there's nothing to really get my teeth into and gnaw on here. These are all excellent musicians and the songs are all very well played. Even Baylor, whom I took ages to warm to (I'm still coming to terms with the loss of Will Kennedy, if I'm to be completely honest and a part of me still mourns his departure) shows that he's more than worthy of his place in the band and shows great versatility and skill.
One or two of the tunes come close to being reminiscent of what I call the band's 90s glory days - Mintzer's "falken's maze" is a strong enough album opener; Haslip's "country living" is a great bass-driven tune, as one might expect; Stern's "double nickel" is definitely worth a listen and his "dreams go" is actually a very nice ballad. I found Mintzer's "I wonder" particularly interesting (it's my favourite track on here); the band's joint effort "3 circles" is also a very good tune (Baylor gives his best performance here); Ferrante's "measure of a man" & "claire's closet" made me wonder once again, why this excellent piano & keyboard player has never put out a solo album and I was humming the refrain to "lazaro", the album closer, for quite a while after the album had ended.
But there's not really enough real meat on the bone here. It's all very pleasant-sounding but nothing is particularly memorable and nothing is particularly exhilarating. There's nothing here that makes me go, "Ooh, I have to hear THAT one AGAIN!" Stern fits himself in nicely with the rest of the band but in terms of songs, he just doesn't have that much to work with as far as I'm concerned. There's no distinct or clearly identifiable structure to the songs and they lack the desired level of cohesiveness.
And I never thought I'd dislike a tune written by Bob Mintzer but I think "yahoo" is just awful.
All said and done though, this will probably be a must-have for most dedicated fan and I imagine they will find something to like here, just like I did. But if you're coming to Yellowjackets for the first time, I strongly recommend you go check out their earlier works, especially their studio stuff from the Will Kennedy years. I'm talking Four Corners (1987), Politics (1988), The Spin (1989), Greenhouse (1991), Like a River (1993), Run for Your Life (1994), Dreamland (1995), Blue Hats (1997) & Club Nocturne (1998). These are the Yellowjackets albums I find myself playing again and again and again. Even some of the post-Kennedy works like the live albums "Mint Jam" and "Twenty Five" are worth the price of their individual tickets a lot more than this one is. And whatever you do, avoid the "Best Of" and Collection" compilations like the plague.
3.5 stars are for the music. I've given the extra .5 purely out of the mad love I have for the band. They were there for me when I needed them.
