In July 1973, New York's Blue Note Records assembled an artists showcase for Switzerland's Montreux Jazz Festival. The performers included Bobbi Humphrey, Bobby Hutcherson, Ronnie Foster, Marlena Shaw, and Donald Byrd. Following the gigs, the label released a series of albums from them with the same title: Live: Cookin' with Blue Note at Montreux. Byrd's performance was shelved, perhaps because Black Byrd, his collaboration with Larry and Fonce Mizell, became a crossover R&B hit and was still on the charts. The tapes sat ...
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In July 1973, New York's Blue Note Records assembled an artists showcase for Switzerland's Montreux Jazz Festival. The performers included Bobbi Humphrey, Bobby Hutcherson, Ronnie Foster, Marlena Shaw, and Donald Byrd. Following the gigs, the label released a series of albums from them with the same title: Live: Cookin' with Blue Note at Montreux. Byrd's performance was shelved, perhaps because Black Byrd, his collaboration with Larry and Fonce Mizell, became a crossover R&B hit and was still on the charts. The tapes sat for decades until Gilles Peterson mentioned them to label boss Don Was in 2013 after Byrd died. Was heard the 2" master tapes and was blown away. Blue Note finally releases the album in commemoration of his 90th birthday. Byrd's ten-piece Montreux band included Fonce on trumpet, Larry on synths, saxophonists Nathan Davis and Allan Barnes, electric pianist Kevin Toney, guitarist Barney Perry, electric bassist Henry Franklin, drummer Keith Killgo, and conguero/percussionist Ray Armando.This impeccably recorded set contains five tunes (three appear only here), lasting just over 45 minutes. The gig opened with "Black Byrd." Synth, hi-hat, and percussion introduce the jam's iconic vamp as Byrd, Fonce, and Killgo chant. This version contains a massive, incessant groove, framing Davis' soaring tenor solo, and interplay between drummer and percussionist; it's hypnotic and utterly danceable. Byrd and company throw the crowd a curve by covering Stevie Wonder's "You've Got It Bad Girl." The silky soul ballad is articulated by the rhythm section before the drummers deliver a Latin funk vamp. The tempo increases as Byrd and Davis deliver killer modal solos atop Franklin's roiling bassline, spiky guitar, synth, and piano. They briefly return to the melody, but then move into denser exploration. "The East" is introduced by a funk riff before the trumpeters fall in; they play together, then dovetail wonderfully in gorgeous harmonic interplay. A simple, circular wah-wah guitar riff signals the band, and they cut loose with overdriven funk and ride it hard for another seven minutes. Longest track "Kwame" begins in spacey abstraction as soprano sax and synth offer drones before electric piano, drums, guitar, and bass fall in with a dark, Weather Report-esque vamp, which gathers force and melodic intensity until it explodes in a collision of modal jazz, bluesy funk, and proto-Afrobeat, with all four horns burning in unison before Barnes delivers a smoking tenor break. Closer "Poco-Mania" is a burner played at furious bebop tempo; the head -- again played by all horns -- is knotty, driving, and unrelenting in its tension and intensity. Byrd takes the first solo and charges into the rhythm section's maelstrom. Davis and Barnes deliver powerful solos before Byrd initiates an even faster tempo, and the band accelerates until they suddenly quit in dramatic fashion. Live: Cookin' with Blue Note at Montreux, July 5, 1973 is not only an astonishing, unearthed treasure for Byrd's fans on his birthday, it's also more than that -- it's a bona fide '70s jazz-funk classic. ~ Thom Jurek, Rovi
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