WORTH A LISTEN

Rating:


Music On The Edge is a bit of a misnomer for this live release from some very talented musicians. That title implies that the music contained therein is uniformly new and innovative.

In some cases, that’s true, like Jim Beard’s arrangement of composer Aaron Copeland’s Fanfare For The Common Man, which has been rendered as a moody, tropical pastoral.

But it’s emphatically not true of tunes like Randy Brecker’s Squids and Mike Stern’s Upside Downside. Squids’ arrangement isn’t a whole lot different from the Brecker Brothers’ version on 1978’s Heavy Metal Bebop, except it has less energy. It’s a disimprovement. The same can be said of Upside Downside, a retread from the 1986 Mike Stern album of the same name, although you do at least get to hear Randy Brecker play trumpet on the introduction.

It should be noted that Music On The Edge is a live album. I’m not saying that it’s a crime to play old tunes in a live setting, of course, but if you’re going to name your CD Music On The Edge, the music contained therein had better be new and innovative in some way.

You could argue that the tunes Lessons and True Confessions fit that description. These are somewhat typical fusion of the late 80s and early 90s, the sort of thing you would expect to grace a Mike Stern album. A little R&B, a lot of rock, an occasional offbeat harmony thrown in, and a fair amount of shredding from soloists like trumpeter Randy Brecker (in fine form), guitarist Mike Stern, and saxophonist Bob Berg. It’s pleasant enough, I suppose. Maybe I’m just burned out on that kind of music.

I’m more excited by the Jim Beard arranged medley that opens the album, or the Mino Cinelu tunes Pwotege Nou and Glazed, or Beard’s arrangement of Joaquin Rodrigo’s classical composition, Concierto de Aranjuez, or Jon Herrington’s composition, Afterwords. These tunes are new and different, then and now — in other words, music on the edge.

Pwotege Nou has a cyclic harmonic pattern and unusual rhythms, overlaid with Mino Cinelu’s vaguely African-sounding vocals. Neat.

For Concierto de Aranjuez, Jim Beard takes a sort of rock-ish, symphonic Jimmy Hendrix Star-Spangled Banner approach to the material. It may not amount to much, but at least it’s original. (Chick Corea used the same episode from Concierto de Aranjuez as an introduction to his classic composition, Spain.)

Jon Herrington’s Afterwords sounds almost like a Jim Beard tune, which is a huge compliment. It has a tricky head, and an unusual harmonic progression. I also like Jim Beard’s evocative and spooky arrangement of the tune, at least until it eventually gets bombastic for Herrington’s somewhat boring arena rock guitar solo.

So is Music On The Edge worth owning? For casual fans of Randy Brecker, Jim Beard, Mike Stern, Bob Berg, Mark Egan or Dennis Chambers, probably not. People who are big fans of the Mike Stern fusion sound of the late 80s and early 90s will enjoy this. Also, if you are a huge fan of Jim Beard’s arranging style, there’s some really neat stuff on this release that you’ll never hear anywhere else.

Put it this way. I’m not getting rid of my copy.

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