Paradox - Steps | Jazzbo Notes

Dec

3

Paradox - Steps

≡ Category: 1980s, Post Bop, Recommended, Reviews |
≅ Written by: Michael Kydonieus

JAZZBO NOTES RECOMMENDED RECORDING

Rating:

Paradox (issued on the Columbia label) is another live album from Steps, the jazz supergroup from the late 70s and early 80s. It almost seems like a waste not to record these guys live since they’re all such awesome musicians. You don’t have to worry about gaffs, so why not capture the energy of a live performance?

Unlike Smokin’ In the Pit, which was recorded at the Pitt Inn in Tokyo, Paradox was recorded at the Brecker Brother’s club, 7th Avenue South, in New York City. Somehow, maybe because the band is home instead of on the road, Paradox has a more relaxed vibe, which is not necessarily a bad thing. Or perhaps it’s the presence of drummer Peter Erskine instead of Steve Gadd. Erskine can definitely swing hard, but he doesn’t seem as permanently caffeinated as Gadd.

It’s hard to pigeonhole the opener N L 4, which seems to start off as a ballad before going through a bunch of rhythmic changes. For the piano solo by Don Grolnick, it eventually develops into a mid-tempo samba. For Mike Mainieri’s vibe solo, the tune slows almost to a ballad before it picks up steam into a samba again.

That could be one of the reasons the band chose the title of the album and the Escher sketch of the stairs that lead into infinity. The performances shift constantly, imperceptibly until you find yourself in a totally difference place from where you started, and if you weren’t paying attention, you had no idea how it happened.

The Aleph has a modified blues structure, but it’s taken in swing time. The head is typically tricky for a Steps tune. Somewhere in the middle, the swing time dissolves, and bassist Eddie Gomez gives us a pedal point around which Don Grolnick’s keyboard gyrations wash like waves around a sand castle. Eventually, even the pedal fades away and Grolnick and Mainieri duet freely before the form of the tune resumes. Michael Brecker contributes a typically biting and exploratory solo on tenor sax, at times venturing into avant guarde territory.

After that workout, Patch Of Blue is a welcome break. The form makes you think it’s going to be a sort of modified modal blues before the tune heads in a totally different direction. By the time the form is completed, you realize it’s a ballad with a pulse like a beating heart.

As the title emplies, Don Grolnick’s Four Chords cycles through four chords for the A section. But it’s not that simple. In the B section, chord sequences are suspended above a series of pedal points provided by Eddie Gomez. The C section is more elaborate, almost like another tune altogether. And then we’re into the solos, which follow the structure of the tune. As often seems to be the case for this band, we go through samba sections and swing sections.

Michael Brecker contributes Take A Walk, a modified blues that goes into swing time for the solos. No tricks here, which is almost a relief after the complexity of the preceding tunes.

Paradox ends unassumingly with a bass solo by Eddie Gomez, which he’s entitled Nichka.

What you get with Paradox is high quality post bop played with no concessions to commercialism, which isn’t to say that it’s harsh. The members of Steps are all studio musicians, so they are well acquainted with popular music, and that influence finds it’s way into the music of Steps. They also obviously have an interest in the music of Brazil, even going so far as to eventually hire a Brazilian pianist, Eliane Elias.

Unfortunately, there is no widget with mp3 samples for Paradox available, so to you give an idea of what the band sounds like, I’ve included a widget for Smokin’ In the Pit: