Vincent Herring and Something Else! - Soul Jazz
Label: |
Smoke Sessions Records |
Genre: |
Jazz |
Product No.: |
ASMS 2403
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UPC: | 730789964209 |
Availability: |
In Stock
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Category: |
Vinyl Record |
Jazz soupergroup led by saxophone great Vincent Herring
Revisiting vital, funky grooves of an unforgettable era!
"This is just meant to be great music that feels good, played by the very best musicians. If it is enlightening to some people, which I'm sure it will be, then that's fine with me." — Vincent Herring, alto saxophone
Something Else! a new supergroup led by Vincent Herring, revisits the vital, funky grooves of an unforgettable era. Soul Jazz, the all-star band's groove-driven debut, features Jeremy Pelt, Wayne Escoffery, Paul Bollenback, David Kikoski, Essiet Essiet and Otis Brown III.
When soul jazz was born in the late 1950s/early 1960s, it provided a pathway for the funky, window-rattling grooves of contemporary soul and R&B to infuse the muscular hard bop of the day. For the generation that grew up in that era, soul jazz is the soundtrack of their lives — not to mention an absolute blast to play.
The new supergroup Something Else! brings together a superb septet that matches impeccable virtuosity with a bottomless feel for this music. Spearheaded by alto saxophone great Vincent Herring, the band's debut release features trumpeter Jeremy Pelt, tenor saxophonist Wayne Escoffery, guitarist Paul Bollenback, pianist David Kikoski, bassist Essiet Essiet, and drummer Otis Brown III.
the album features groove-centric tunes from such masters as Horace Silver, Herbie Hancock, Roy Hargrove, Donald Byrd, Stanley Turrentine, Eddie Harris, Pee Wee Ellis, and John Coltrane, played with infectious vitality by this unparalleled dream band.
The approach to jazz that these stellar musicians take always comes with its fair share of soul, no matter the stylistic twists and turns it may take. But with Something Else! they places the soul firmly the spotlight, refreshing this classic material with a thrilling, vibrant joy that is electrifying conveyed directly into the listener's body. Soul Jazz comes with an unspoken challenge not to move.
Herring found that electrifying feeling missing in much of the music he was hearing from his students at William Paterson University and the Manhattan School of Music, which inspired him to put out the call to his most gifted compatriots. Herring had learned first-hand from masters of feeling, swing and groove — an invaluable bandstand education forged alongside the legendary likes of Freddie Hubbard, Dizzy Gillespie, Art Blakey, Jack DeJohnette, Horace Silver, Carla Bley, Lionel Hampton and others, as well as integral collaborations with fellow torchbearers like Steve Turre, Carl Allen, Eric Alexander, Jon Faddis, Wynton Marsalis and James Carter.
The band's name, of course, is borrowed from Somethin' Else, the classic 1958 Cannonball Adderley album. Adderley and his brother Nat can both be counted among the architects of soul jazz, and Herring enjoyed deep ties to both - he toured and recorded for nearly a decade with Nat Adderley following his brother's death, and went on to form the Cannonball Adderley Legacy Band with drummer Louis Hayes.
The Adderleys are not among the composers included on Soul Jazz, however — unless you count a sly quote of Nat's immortal "Work Song" during the drum solo on Turrentine's "Too Blue" — and Something Else! can just as readily be taken as a descriptor of the music, a phrase along the lines of "out of this world" that hails the surprises and thrills contained herein.
"This project represents the music that we love, music that just feels great," Herring says. "Everybody in the band grew up on soul jazz, where the feeling was paramount. The music of the day was soul and R&B — that's what my parents played on the stereo when they were in the car or when they would have gatherings. So I think it's a feeling that we were all craving in our own music."
1. Filthy McNasty | 2. Too Blue | 3. Mean Greens | 4. The Chicken | 5. Driftin' | 6. Slow Drag | 7. Strasbourg/St. Denis | 8. Naima |
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