With his Elektric Band in full swing in the `80s, Chick created its perfect complement: the Akoustic Band. With Elektric Band veterans John Patitucci on upright bass and Dave Weckl on drums, the group carved a totally new path in the world of the piano trio: the kinetic interplay of all three members honed on high-velocity Corea originals. As a follow-up to the Akoustic Band's Standards & More (1989) and Alive (2007), this third album was recorded live during the band's 2018 tour.
Although still best known for his association with Chick Corea, drummer Dave Weckl has led an underrated group of his own for quite a few years. His core band, a quartet with keyboardist Steve Weingart, electric bassist Tom Kennedy, and saxophonist Gary Meek, is a little reminiscent of the Yellowjackets in its use of catchy melodies and appealing grooves and its ability to perform post-bop jazz with the sensibility of rock. Weckl does not dominate the music and gives Meek and Weingart plenty of solo space. His band deserves to be heard, and Multiplicity is an excellent example of the quartet at its best.
The Dave Weckl Acoustic Band represents the realization of a dream. In 2013, while touring with Mike Stern, Dave was reintroduced to playing with the amazing Makoto Ozone. Dave met Makoto in the '80s, and Makoto blew Dave away during this tour! Each night, Mike would give some space for Dave, Makoto, and Tom Kennedy to improvise a song. The guys would take this opportunity to really stretch out! The chemistry was amazing. This record is loaded with straight ahead jazz, a little funk, a little Latin, and more.
Even as the music industry has leaned more toward pigeonholing artists to fit them into simple categories, listeners are blessed to have a few visionaries who realize that the spirit of truly great music can't always be so tidy and contained. Weckl's fifth Stretch Records release lives up to the promise of its kinetic title, reflecting his ensemble's powerful rhythmic energy and ongoing commitment to melodic invention and improvisational spontaneity.
Although Dave Weckl is an excellent drummer, not all of his recordings have been excellent. In the 1990s, you never knew if you would find something exciting or mundane on a Weckl album. But this fusion/soul-jazz disc turned out to be a pleasant surprise. Synergy, in fact, is the drummer's most consistently satisfying CD. Excessive producing was a major problem on some of his previous releases, but this time he generally avoids overproducing and goes for a real band sound. Joined by tenor and soprano saxman Brandon Fields, keyboardist Jay Oliver, guitarist Buzz Feiten, and electric bassist Tom Kennedy, Weckl has a solid team to work with and emphasizes improvisation and honest-to-God playing not high-tech studio gloss.
Toss into the musical blender the spirits of Stevie Wonder, Crusaders, Van Halen, Sting, Dr. John, and Chick Corea; turn on the fire, low for easy simmering blues-rock at times, high for a fiery intensity that busts the borders between R&B and fusion. The result: the Dave Weckl Band's hard-to-categorize adventure, Rhythm of the Soul. Here, he celebrates his liberation from Corea's Elektric fold with a vengeance.
Nine years after the breakup of the final version of Return to Forever, Chick Corea ended a long period of freelance projects by forming his Elektrik Band. This set, the group's initial release, finds Corea meeting up for the first time with the great bassist John Patitucci and drummer Dave Weckl; half of the selections also have either Carlos Rios or Scott Henderson on guitar. Due to the high musicianship, the personalities of the players, and Corea's colorful compositions, the Elektrik Band quickly became one of the top fusion groups of the late '80s. This album is a milestone in contemporary jazz.
During an era when the word "fusion" was applied to any mixture of jazz with pop or funk, Chick Corea's Elektric Band reinforced the word's original meaning: a combination of jazz improvisations with the power, rhythms and sound of rock. Eye of the Beholder, which found guitarist Frank Gambale, saxophonist Eric Marienthal and bassist John Patitucci displaying increasingly original solo voices, is one of this group's finest recordings and ranks with the best fusion of the latter half of the 1980s.