Right from the stop-start bass groove that opens
"The Emperor,"
it's immediately clear that
Ethiopian Knights
is more indebted to
funk
-- not just funky
jazz
, but the straight-up
James Brown
/
Sly Stone
variety -- than any previous
Donald Byrd
project. And, like a true
band,
Byrd
and his group work the same driving, polyrhythmic grooves over and over, making rhythm the focal point of the music. Although the musicians do improvise, their main objective is to keep the grooves pumping, using their solos more to create texture than harmonic complexity. That's why
purists began to detest
with this album (though the follow-ups certainly cinched it); in truth, even though
did move
closer to
R&B
, it's still more
than
, and didn't completely foreshadow his crossover. The dense arrangements and lo-o-o-ng workouts (two of the three tracks are over 15 minutes) are indicative of
's continued debt to
Miles Davis
, in particular the bevy of live double LPs
Davis
issued in the early '70s.
again leads a large ensemble, but with mostly different players than on his recent sessions; some come from the group assembled for
Bobby Hutcherson
's
Head On
album, others from
the Jazz Crusaders
. That's part of the reason there are fewer traces of
hard bop
here, but it's also clear from the title that
's emerging Afrocentric consciousness was leading him -- like
-- to seek ways of renewing
's connection to the people who created it. Even if it isn't quite as consistent as
Kofi
and
Electric Byrd
,
is another intriguing transitional effort that deepens the portrait of
the
acid jazz
legend. ~ Steve Huey