Soulgrass (BHM Productions)
Bill Evans
Released September 5, 2005
Grammy Nominee Best Contemporary Jazz Album 2006
YouTube:
https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=q0sNGjTLI34&list=OLAK5uy_nRgWBb8erzCyIjTx6v9LlLvG6BpV6RYWc
Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/album/53kIamOZbXPMbeI0WKkLCs?si=YXSeZcXBRmuEOCdxiAXehQ
About:
Seeing a quote like, “Bill is one of the greatest musicians I’ve come upon,” to describe the great saxophonist, Bill Evans, is quite high praise, but the bar gets set really high when the quote is from the greatest musician himself, Miles Davis. The thing is though, unlike some musicians that occasionally fall short of the praise they’ve received, Bill Evans and Soulgrass will have absolutely no problem meeting incredible expectations come their show on Saturday. Come in expecting some monstrous jams, some of the greatest sax lines you’ll ever hear, a roaring banjo, cool tunes, phenomenal band to back it up, and you’ll get all of your desires met. We’re in store for quite a show!
Soulgrass, Evans’ current project, was initiated when he released an album in 2006 that featured his great sax playing along with bluegrass icons like Bela Fleck, Jerry Douglas, Stuart Duncan and others. Still going super strong today, he now has a set band that features the impeccable musicianship of Ryan Cavanaugh, Josh Dion, Mitch Stein, Clifford Carter, and Andy Hess. Each musician is at the top of their game and typically leaves the audience delightfully stunned with their virtuosity. One would be hard-pressed to find a sax player into more things than their leader, Bill Evans. In his career, he has worked alongside Miles, recording 6 albums with him, as well as the Mahavishnu Orchestra, Mick Jagger, Lee Ritenour, Dave Weckl, Dave Grusin, Herbie Hancock, Sam Bush, Warren Haynes and many others. He has recorded 19 solo albums and is no stranger to GRAMMY awards. An active touring musician, we are lucky to have this icon pass through Cambridge!
Matt Scutchfield (contemporary composer and instrumentalist at Berklee College of Music)
Track Listing:
1. Soulgrass (Bill Evans / Béla Fleck) 7:40
2. Home on the Hill (Bill Evans) 8:12
3. Eyes of a Child (Bill Evans) 7:15
4. Small Town Jack (Bill Evans) 6:25
5. Weekend Cowboy (Bill Evans) 7:02
6. Snap Dragon (Bill Evans) 6:06
7. Celtic Junction (Bill Evans) 6:06
8. Shenandoah Breakdown (Bill Monroe) 4:53
9. Arthur Avenue (Bill Evans) 5:41
10. Jean Pierre (Miles Davis) 6:45
Personnel:
Bill Evans: saxophone, background vocals (2)
Bela Fleck: banjo (1, 2, 4)
Victor Wooten: bass (1, 2, 4, 6, 10)
Vinnie Colaiuta: drums (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10)
Mark Egan: bass (2, 5, 7, 8, 9)
Bruce Hornsby: piano (7)
Clifford Carter: organ (1, 2, 4, 5), keyboards (3, 6), background vocals (2, 3)
Dave Kikoski: piano (9)
Pat Bergeson: guitars (3, 5, 7, 8, 10), harmonica (3, 5, 7, 10)
David Charles: percussion (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 9, 10)
Sam Bush: mandolin (2, 4)
Jerry Douglas: dobro (7, 8)
Stuart Duncan: fiddle (1, 2, 5, 6, 8, 10)
John Scofield: guitar (5)
Anton Leos: banjo (6, 8, 10)
Recorded Oct 2004 – Jan 2005, at Playground Recording, Nashville, Tennessee
Producer: Bill Evans
Executive Producer: Joachim Becker
Co-producer: Bela Fleck
Assistant Engineer: Ryan Jenkins
Recording Engineer: Roger Moutenot
Mixed by Phil Magnotti
Review:
There
seems to be a never-ending supply of bands these days concocting ambitious
hybrids of hip-hop and jazz, South Indian Carnatic music and jazz, Balkan music
and jazz, and klezmer music and jazz. But precious few have attempted to meld
elements of bluegrass and jazz. Mandolinist David Grisman was a pioneer in this
direction back in the ’70s with his brand of so-called “dawg” music, which
offered buoyant, bluegrassy takes on Hot Club of France fare with plenty of
stretching for fellow virtuosos like fiddlers Darol Anger and Mark O’Connor,
guitarist Tony Rice and the occasional guest spot by Stephane Grappelli
himself. Mandolinist Sam Bush pushed the envelope on exploring within the
bluegrass tradition during the ’70s and ’80s with his groudbreaking New Grass
Revival, a band that effectively named a new genre. Mandolinist Mike Marshall,
an alumnus of Grisman’s Quartet, continued in this newgrass direction during
the ’80s (his 1988 Rounder recording with violinist Darol Anger, The
Duo, featured a take on Charlie Parker’s “Donna Lee”) and in the ’90s with
his band Psychograss and also with the all-star group Strength in Numbers. In
recent years, banjo virtuoso Béla Fleck, a former member of Bush’s New Grass
Revival, has taken this hybrid idea to the jam-band scene as the leader of his
popular band the Flecktones.
While these groups may have laid the groundwork
for a marriage of mountain music and jazz, none have fused the two musics so
forcefully and seamlessly as saxophonist Bill Evans has with his Soulgrass
band. Grounded by the powerful yet remarkably flexible rhythm tandem of drummer
Dennis Chambers and electric bassist Richard Bona, Evans’ latest edition of the
group includes young Nashville-based banjo innovator Ryan Cavanaugh and the
aforementioned Bush on mandolin, along with the exciting Christian Howes on
violin. Together they delivered an invigorating, high-energy set that expertly
incorporated intricate, blazing unison lines on the heads and improvisational
abandon in the solo sections. And as tight as the arrangements were, there was
still a looseness on the bandstand that allowed for a playful, organic shifting
of rhythms, from funk to uptempo swing to reggae, strictly in the moment.
Cavanaugh’s advanced chordal voicings and
arpeggios provided some intriguing harmonic textures behind Evans’ urgent tenor
sax solos on “Soulgrass” and the funky “Celtic Junction,” the latter sounding
like a hybrid of Black 47 and the Average White Band. Violinist Howes provided
a seamless blend of bluegrass and bebop on “Soulgrass,” attacking the strings
with powerhouse intensity. On “Celtic Junction” Howes revealed his flair for
real-deal blues à la Stuff Smith. And when he stomped on his distortion pedal,
he took his solo to Hendrixland.
Chambers, a human highlight reel as a soloist,
was turned loose on a few occasions throughout the set, unleashing his uncanny
chops and awesome technical proficiency in ways that he rarely gets to do on
his regular longstanding gig with Carlos Santana. Every solo is a virtual
clinic with this guy.
At one point in his solo on “Soulgrass,”
mandolinist Bush started strumming the familiar theme to Weather Report’s
“Birdland.” Bona instantly picked up on that motif by quoting Jaco’s signature
bassline on that ’70s anthem. “Dance of the Leprachauns” (from Evans’
recent The Other Side of Something) carried a distinctive “Afro
Blue” vibe and featured some nice blending on the frontline between Howes’
violin and Evans’ soprano sax. Cavanaugh and Bush engaged in some fiery trading
of fours on this number, and the banjoist also revealed a novel use of
Wes-styled octaves on his five-string instrument. Cavanaugh also turned in a
blistering, distortion-laced banjo solo on Bush’s “Laps in Seven,” an
audacious, chops-busting number that sounded closer in spirit to the Mahavishnu
Orchestra than Bill Monroe’s Foggy Mountain Boys.
Chambers and Bona both left the stage for “Katie
Hill,” an acoustic bluegrass breakdown featuring Evans, Cavanaugh, Bush and
Howes. Evans also offered some clear, confident vocals on the rocking anthem
“Ode to the Working Man.,” which included a wicked wah-wah-laced solo by Bush
(on a mandolin-sized guitar) in which he quoted nimbly from Hendrix’s iconic
“Voodoo Child (Slight Return).” They closed the set on a supercharged note with
Howes’ barnburner “Slippery Bigs,” highlighted by an intense Elvin-Trane-styled
breakdown between Chambers and Evans.
Decked out in his tie-dyed shirt and headband,
Evans seemed tailor-made for the jam-band scene, which might be a perfect fit
for this invigorating band of virtuosos.
Bill Milkowski (JazzTimes)
