Steve Gadd Band: Way Back Home

Rating: ★★★

Record and Artist Details

Musicians:

Walt Fowler (t, flhn)
Steve Gadd (d)
Jimmy Johnson (b)
Michael Landau (g)
Larry Goldings (p, org)

Label:

BFM Jazz

Dec/Jan/2016/2017

RecordDate:

26 June 2015

A triple whammy of CD, live performance DVD and a disc of interviews that testify that Steve Gadd is not going gently into the good night of jazz decline even if he's now, as he'd describe it, 70 strong. Nor is the time-master reeling back the years and simply rehashing his extensive repertoire. Instead Gadd draws deeply on his recent albums, Gadditude and 70 Strong and they're sufficiently salted with a fresh attack to make fans still want to have this CD on their racks. From the opening joys of Jarrett's ‘The Wind Up’, through the more introspective ‘Desu’ to the down and funky title track, the band barely miss a beat, with Landau in particularly fine form. His interplay with Johnson is notably spectacular, especially on ‘Way Back Home’, and the band as a whole play with that tight but loose vibe you'd expect after the decades they've bounced off each other. Fowler watches on as lugubrious as ever, laying down a horn break as cool as you like when the mood takes him. As for Goldings, what's left to say, his organ just grows richer as time goes by, lucky fella. Gadd has no need for histrionics behind such a line-up, but in case anyone needs to know who's boss, he's there to break it up with rolling toms and cymbal work that startles, as on the Landau feature ‘Africa’. Fans will love it, and those who are not may be pleasantly surprised.

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