JAZZBO NOTES ESSENTIAL RECORDING
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The Yellowjackets have often been tarred with the same brush as Spyro Gyra, a charge that tends to stick, thanks to the godawful fuzak the Yellowjackets trafficked in during most of the 80s and 90s.
But the Yellowjackets’ debut album (on the Warner Brothers label) is anything but namby. The arrangements are spacious, instead of being cluttered by unnecessary and cloying synthesizer strings. Bassist Jimmy Haslip is about as funky as it gets. Drummer Ricky Lawson sticks with Haslip like a second skin. Paulinho Da Costa helps the music to bubble along with some sweet percussion work. Guitarist Robbin Ford contributes burning guitar leads that manage the neat trick of being blues-based while faithfully negotiating the harmonies of the tunes. Russell Ferrante comes up with a wide variety of tasty keyboard sounds. He can comp the hell out of funk and R&B, but he takes a backseat to no one in his ability to play advanced bebop lines. The horn arrangements by Larry Williams are crisp and gorgeous. Jerry Hey has a flugelhorn solo so coherent on the cut The Hornet that you halfway suspect it was thought out ahead of time.
The tunes are great, too. Not a loser in the bunch. They have pop-like hooks, which are not easy to write, trust me. Rhythmically, they make you want to boogie. Somehow, composers Russell Ferrante, Jimmy Haslip, and Ricky Lawson have managed to consistently combine funk, pop, bebop, and rock into a convincing whole.
There’s not a whole lot more to say. The Yellowjackets’ debut release is composed of nothing but highlights. It’s a delight from beginning to end.
