Garfield 2

Unless you frequent Los Angeles clubs like The Baked Potato and La Ve Lee, chances are you haven't heard of keyboardist David Garfield. But you've heard him. Appearing on over a hundred albums, Garfield has worked with artists like trumpeter Freddie Hubbard and guitarist Larry Carlton. He's a co-founder of Los Lobotomys and Karizma, two fusion-based jam bands that have included drummers like Vinnie Colaiuta and Simon Phillips, as well as guitarists Steve Lukather and the perennially-underrated Michael Landau. No recording dates are listed on The State of Things, but Garfield's clearly been working on it for years, given that a third of the tracks feature Carlos Vega—a versatile drummer who appeared on literally hundreds of albums before passing away tragically in 1998. This fusion-centric effort features many of LA's best session players, but in many ways it's as much Landau's disc as it is Garfield's. He pays tribute to Jimi Hendrix on a version of "If Six Was Nine that—as blasphemous as this may sound—might actually be an improvement on the original. While his tone says rock, his lines say jazz as he demonstrates complete facility navigating changes on the swinging version of Miles Davis' "Milestones and a more delicate mainstream take on John Coltrane's "Naima. He exhibits his more textural side on "Me and kicks things into extreme high gear on the greasy funk of "Five Storks and the more overtly rocking "Black Cadillac.