LA Express: LA Express/Shadow Play

Rating: ★★★

Record and Artist Details

Musicians:

Victor Feldman (p, d, vib)
David Luell (s)
John Guerin (d)
Robben Ford (g, org, p)

Label:

BGO

August/2017

RecordDate:

1975

An intriguing two-fer, if only for the absence of one musician and the presence of another. Tom Scott's name was always lassoed to that of the LA Express, especially for Tom Cat and the ground-breaking work with Joni Mitchell, not least the live Miles of Aisles. But in his absence Ford and Guerin brought in the legendary Victor Feldman, Edgware's finest. The sound is immediately taken into a deeper groove as exemplified on ‘The Shrug’, with Guerin in excelsis beneath Feldman's Rhodes and climactic synths. Ford, of course, is not to be left out and there are echoes of his later stint with Miles on the coruscating ‘Stairs’ which features standout, over-driven guitar work. The Joni connection through Guerin is revived on Shadow Play where she lays down some typically eerie vox. But it's Feldman's presence again, notably on the all too brief, doubled lines of ‘Chariot Race’ that reveals the band could have chased Return To Forever round the stadia. But instead the band crumbled, with Guerin and Bennett staying close to Mitchell on various projects while Feldman became Steely Dan's go to keys man.

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