Blue Note boss bassist Don Was best known for his work with the funky Was (Not Was) gets things off to a winning start on a reggae tip with Kiwi band Fat Freddy Drop’s ‘Midnight Marauders.’ Fat Freddy’s Drop founder Chris ‘Mu’ Faiumu who had a hand in writing the song died back in the summer. “The seven-piece genre-blending unit emerged as a jam band in Wellington in the late 1990s,” according to April Clare Welsh writing for djmag.com, “and were catapulted to international fame in 2003 following a German reissue of their track ‘Midnight Marauders’.”
If your route to the roots lands in another area and if you are a Was (Not Was) fan – walking the dinosaur perchance…? – then the track to go to first is the take on Cameo’s ‘Insane.’
But you don’t have to be. That is an outlier. And it’s fun. The approach no less fun elsewhere is open ended. It is more jazz than reggae or funk given the sprawling solo-heavy playing that liberally abounds.
The Was band here started last year. Members include Blue Note saxist Dave McMurray, keyboardist Luis Resto and guitarist Wayne Gerard, trombonist Vincent Chandler, trumpeter John Douglas, drummer Jeff Canaday, percussionist Mahindi Masai and last – but by no means least – singer Stefffanie Christi’an.
Other tunes are Kenny Barron’s ‘Nubian Lady which goes back to Yusef Lateef’s early 1970s album The Gentle Giant. McMurray gets really stuck in on flute – it’s far more shrill than on the Lateef version or indeed Bobbi Humphrey’s which it has more in common with thinking of Dig This! and – it’s a live track – gets a roar from the crowd. No idea where it was recorded. Answers on a postcard, puh-lease.
Was includes his own piece ‘You Asked, I Came’ that has a lot of motion to it and which was on a 1990s movie soundtrack Backbeat which was about the early days of the Beatles in Hamburg. Terence Blanchard guests on this new version. Blanchard suggested to Was in the first place to get this Pan-Detroit outfit together.
The singer Christi’an is at her best on the very laidback twang free trombone soaked treatment of Hank Williams’ ‘I Ain’t Got Nothin’ But Time’ whose lyrics begin:
Little girl, if you’re feeling low
And you got no place to go,
Just give me a ring
And some joy I will bring.
‘Cause I ain’t got nothin’ but time
As the album title says it’s about groove – no false advertising there – and full marks for that choice. Also includes a take on Curtis Mayfield’s ‘This Is My Country’ which I love. Again the singer does a great job. Be good to yourselves gentle readers, get this. A recipe that’s an antidote against feeling jaded and a good excuse to go crate digging all day long guided by Was and co. Leaves you wanting lots more.
