Word: funke
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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DIED. GROVER WASHINGTON JR., 56, smooth Philadelphia blues and jazz-funk saxophonist, after playing four songs and collapsing at a taping of a cbs-tv show; in New York City. Washington made more than two dozen albums but is best known for the sax solo on his 1981 hit song Just...
...basic good stuff is still there. The band's best and perhaps most distinguishing feature--the surprising little vignettes of sound which switch you, with no attempt at subtlety, into a deliciously different musical genre for a few bars--makes itself felt in force: there's a '90s-style funk surprise in "Ode to Maybe" and even a hint of opera in "Red Summer Sun." Once again, the album demonstrates 3EB's versatility: the songs are funny and sad, hard and soft, discordant and, at times, quite beautiful. A- --BENJAMIN A. COWAN
...seen the Dave Matthews band on the road and wondered who the opening act was, then Bela Fleck and the Flecktones' new album is worth a listen. Spanning nine years, the album features highlights from the band's eight previous releases. The Flecktones fuse jazz, funk and bluegrass into an eclectic mix of musical virtuosity that escapes the confines of any genre, using sounds ignored in mainstream rock, including Bela Fleck's Grammy-winning banjo skills and Future Man's synthaxe drumitar, a sort of percussion guitar that changes from rhythm to lead. Victor Wooten, arguably the best bass player...
...sounds a little thin and is more exciting as an artistic maneuver on Beck's part than as a long-term fixture in a CD-changer. It's the most straightforward (and final) track, in fact, that will probably become Midnite Vulture's best-remembered track. "Debra" is a funk-love send-up; its proto-cheesy sound is so robust that all irony melts away. It's got joy, like the joy Beck had when he was so suddenly confident of "Where It [was] At." The rest of the album approaches the clarity of "Debra," as if Beck is trying...
...clear funk influence pervades the disc; despite layers and layers of noise, the larger portions of tracks such as "Milk and Honey" and the high-energy first single "Sexx Laws" remain sparse, highlighting the intertwining riffs which pop from guitar to bass to trumpet to sax and back. "Sexx Laws" and its driving horns might come straight from the James Brown songbook; other tunes could back up gangsta rap (though it's unlikely Method Man would tolerate this couplet, from "Hollywood Freaks": "We drop lobotomy beats/Evaporated meats"). The fantastically mellow "Debra" even features an impassioned falsetto vocal delivered...