Word: funke
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Knoxville, Tenn. rock-jazz-funk band Gran Torino is an impressive musical collaboration of nine fine musicians. Together, they fuse the sounds of trumpet, guitar, keyboard, sax and other instruments into smooth music with groove. To their fans' delight, Gran Torino now has 11 new songs on their second album, Two. The new album follows their 1997 release, One. Two features more singing than its largely instrumental predecessor, but many of the new album's songs, like "Phyllis" and "Days of the Tested," have excellent solos generously mixed in. While lead singer Chris Ford's vocals often sound uncomfortably similar...
...Voodoo is a richly imagined CD with an all-star supporting cast: drummer Ahmir ("?uestlove") Thompson (his nickname is pronounced "Questlove") of the hip-hop band the Roots, jazzman Roy Hargrove, rappers Method Man and Redman. The music blends hip-hop with smooth soul and gritty funk. The songs don't rush to please, like puppy-dog pop tunes; instead, each track takes its own sweet time stretching out, like a cat waking up from a nap. Intelligent? Deadly? Unique? Voodoo's all three...
...heads, led by Maxwell, have emerged and stolen a good part of the spotlight from the angelic one's cornrowed head. Never fear though. D'Angelo has reclaimed center stage. Voodoo is thick with the same sensuality as Brown Sugar and doubly infused with bottomed-out, layered funk that recalls a smoke-filled Brooklyn bar or greasy Southern kitchen. Highlights include the funk-spiritual "Devil's Pie," "Left & Right" (a remarkable collaboration with Method Man and Redman) and "How Does It Feel," the video for which you have no doubt already seen...
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