Playing Steel Drums

Resonance Records goes out of its way again to unearth yet another significant chapter in jazz history, and once again, it's one that relatively few fans have ever heard. This performance of Jaco Pastorius' Word of Mouth Big Band was captured during George Wein's Kool Jazz Festival at Avery Fisher Hall. It was broadcast on NPR's Jazz Alive program, but this double disc contains the entire performance, with more than 40 minutes of additional music.

Released back when there was always two sides to every audio story (i.e., side one and side two), Giuffria's second offering houses an interesting concept: polarizing the huffy from the heavy. This is hardly a revolutionary idea, as such was the common format of most AOR at the time, and perhaps for the sake of balance some silk slips into the steel and vice versa, so the record ultimately ends up heavy on the light. The titular titan's bombastic keyboards float like angel feathers amongst David Glen Eisley's lung-busting vocals (Eisley even scats with axeman Lanny Cordola right out of the gate on "No Escape")…

Andy Narell is the Jimmy Smith of the steel drums, an innovative player who has been responsible for introducing his instrument to jazz. On this CD Narell shows off the surprising versatility of his instrument, not only playing spirited Latin jams and calypsos but also heartfelt ballads and more complex works. The lively yet diverse date is a strong example of Andy Narell's talents.

This double-CD has 24 different groups of fusion musicians (including some from Europe) paying tribute to Weather Report. Despite the personnel and often the instrumentation changing from track to track, there is a unity to the project and many of the bands sound quite a bit like Weather Report, either purposely as part of the tribute or naturally. The programming is somewhat random and the bands bring back the sound, grooves, and spirits of Weather Report rather than necessarily always sticking to their compositions. All in all, this is a heartfelt and very well-played tribute that can also serve as an introduction to a cross-section of some of today's top fusion musicians, many of whom are not household names yet.

Essential: a masterpiece of prog rock music
I challenge you all to call me a fanboy - I can't see any collabs/reviewers five star rating for this beast. Fine. Let me be first.
First of all, the full title of this issue is "Welcome Back My Friends To The Show That Never Ends; Ladies And Gentlemen, Emerson, Lake And Palmer"! Let it be shown in all of it's pompousness!