Jazz Is Dead's label motto includes the words "...to foreground legends from the past" and "... highlight their contributions." This set by Detroit's Tribe founders Phil Ranelin and Wendell Harrison is poignantly symbiotic. Founded by the pair in 1971, Tribe was a musical collective and a record label; they also founded a coffeehouse/meeting place for the Motor City's artistic community, and published a magazine. Harrison and Ranelin are jazzmen, but coming from Detroit they indulge in their extracurricular musical ...
Read More
Jazz Is Dead's label motto includes the words "...to foreground legends from the past" and "... highlight their contributions." This set by Detroit's Tribe founders Phil Ranelin and Wendell Harrison is poignantly symbiotic. Founded by the pair in 1971, Tribe was a musical collective and a record label; they also founded a coffeehouse/meeting place for the Motor City's artistic community, and published a magazine. Harrison and Ranelin are jazzmen, but coming from Detroit they indulge in their extracurricular musical activities, too, including Harrison's appearances on early Motown sessions, Ranelin's on the Red Hot Chili Peppers' debut album and Build an Ark's, and the pair's jazz-EDM fusion work with producer Carl Craig.The seven tunes here were group-composed and cut at Adrian Younge's and Ali Shaheed Muhammad's Linear Labs studio and played by the quartet and drummer Greg Paul. Harrison -- tenor saxophone, bass clarinet -- and Ranelin -- trombone -- assume their time-honored roles. Muhammad plays electric bass throughout, and Younge delivers on guitars, keyboards, synths, and myriad percussion.The name of the game here is spacious groove. Opener "Genesis" begins eerily and abstractly, like an electric Miles Davis outtake. It gathers drama, momentum, and dynamic before horns, electric guitar, and layered, skittering snare breaks and Latin-tinged Rhodes piano insert a loose, spiritual soul jam that morphs into modal jazz. "Open Eye" finds Younge's marimba and electric guitar meeting Paul's rumbling tom-toms and snares as horns develop a knotty lyricism in spirited interplay, then trade fours. "Running with the Tribe" is introduced by Muhammad's walking bass and Paul's acrobatic cymbals. Harrison winds his way in with a bass clarinet solo and Ranelin embellishes the backdrop. Halfway through, a glorious funk backbeat claims the fore and the tune gels to the horn players' call-and-response above insistent Rhodes and percussion. The melody is spacious, nocturnal, and infectious. "Fire in Detroit" starts out as a gorgeous psychedelic soul interlude with pillowy synths, organs, and bass until Ranelin's expressive trombone and Muhammad's punchy bass construct a vamp that Harrison's bass clarinet responds to atop rolling snares and a kick drum shuffle. The melody briefly references John Barry's "Midnight Cowboy" before moving off into deeper, murkier jazz-funk. "Ursa Major" is composed of martial drumming, a circular bassline, and screaming electric guitar kissed by Rhodes piano, clarinet, and muted trombone. "Metropolitan Blues" is arguably the best cut. Muhammad offers a bass vamp met by breaking drums and punchy horns. Rhodes piano atmospherically paints the backdrop before Ranelin starts his moaning trombone solo, which ultimately bleats and roars. The band increases force but never leaves the groove. When Harrison solos, Ranelin claims his place on the vamp. Closer "Black Census" is a fingerpopping, funky groover that recalls the Weather Report of Black Market and Heavy Weather, centered in frenetic, jazzed-up Detroit funk. JID016 finds the two octogenarian musicians in startlingly excellent form. They not only continue to offer canny instrumental and conceptual mastery, but clearly inspire their younger counterparts. ~ Thom Jurek, Rovi
Read Less
