Guitarist
Robben Ford
is among the most traveled musicians of the last five decades. As a sideman, he has worked alongside legends including
Charlie Musselwhite
,
Jimmy Witherspoon
Miles Davis
George Harrison
Mavis Staples
, and
Joni Mitchell
, just to name a few. As a leader, he's recorded a diverse body of work that cuts across and/or melds blues, jazz, rock, funk, soul, country, and fusion.
Pure
, his first instrumental date since 1997's Grammy-nominated
Tiger Walk
, altered his normal recording process with excellent results.
Ford
usually enters the recording studio with a band, cuts tracks for a few days, then fixes mistakes and adds overdubs during post-production. He started out that way here, too. Along the way, something didn't sound right; the other players were influencing the music too much.
and co-producer/engineer
Casey Wasner
went back to the drawing board.
Wasner
recorded
playing all guitars and most keyboards. When they finished, they dubbed in various rhythm sections and saxophonists
Bill Evans
and
Jeff Coffin
.
The brief title-track opener is an interlude. Lasting less than two minutes, it offers
's oud-like acoustic intro under a biting single-string jazz-funk electric, with funky drums and bass. "White Rock Beer...8 Cents" is a swaggering blues shuffle as
's layered guitars meet and dialogue at the top of the mix with a shuffling drum kit (by his brother
Patrick Ford
) and a walking bassline. His fills and solo crisscross the Texas, Chicago, and West Coast traditions amid buoyant, jazzy keyboards and swinging horns. "Balafon" is the only track not to feature
on keyboards; instead, he drafted former
Yellowjackets
' bandmate
Russell Ferrante
to add Wurlitzer electric piano with a rumbling bass, and insistent snares and floor toms. They wrap labyrinthine guitar passages in a pulsing blue funk. "Go" owes a debt to the influence of
James Brown
. The interplay between
's guitar and the saxophonists entwines in a finger-popping melody and skeletal R&B vamp, all while riding an infectious funk groove. "Blues for Lonnie Johnson" weds the strolling Texas blues tradition to 21st century Chicago with haunted B-3 atop the saxes and a shuffling rhythm section while
delivers his finest solo on the set. "A Dragon's Tail" joins jazz-funk and prog with carefully woven keyboards and intricately layered guitars. The full reprised version of the title track shines with a polyrhythmic union of tablas, an oud, a drum kit, and
's spaced-out layers of arpeggiated melodic soloing.
is a perfectly balanced outing, contrasting the electric and the organic with contemporary production. While deeply focused, it presents these compositions with a truly relaxed vibe dictated by requisite good taste. ~ Thom Jurek