Ramsey Lewis: Them Changes
Author: Kevin Le Gendre
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Musicians: |
Morris Jennings (d, perc) |
Label: |
Elemental/Universal |
Magazine Review Date: |
Dec/Jan/2016/2017 |
Catalogue Number: |
88516 |
RecordDate: |
1970 |
One of the great soul jazz pianists in funky electric mode at a very good live session at the Depot, which captures some of the ‘right on’ energy of the post-Civil Rights era. A superb sleeve that presents a collage of the peace movement, Black Panthers and protests against police brutality chimes powerfully with the reprise of Buddy Miles' ‘Them Changes’, an anthem for unstable times, in which Lewis' Rhodes and Phil Upchurch's wah-wah guitar are as subversive as they are seductive. Thereafter it is Lewis referring to his staple vocabulary of gospelised grooves and retooled pop (a highlight is George Harrison's ‘Something’) that pay dividends. However, the music is anything but ‘easy’ and the quite arresting blues vamp of ‘Do Whatever Sets You Free’, emboldened by Upchurch's raucous fingerpickin', shows how much newness can be drawn from the more accessible side of jazz.
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