Ramsey Lewis: Them Changes

Rating: ★★★★

Record and Artist Details

Musicians:

Morris Jennings (d, perc)
Ramsey Lewis (p, el p, clavinet, harpsichor
Phil Upchurch (g)
Cleveland Eaton (b)

Label:

Elemental/Universal

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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