DONALD BYRD — Electric Byrd (review)

DONALD BYRD — Electric Byrd album cover Album · 1970 · Fusion Buy this album from MMA partners
4.5/5 ·
Sean Trane
This is Byrd’s second most stunning album after the extraordinary Ethiopian Knights release that would come chronologically after the present Electric Byrd. But this album is hard to separate from the Kofi posthumous release, since these EB tracks are taken from the same or surrounding two sessions as Kofi’s and you’ll find quasi the same line-ups on both, although there are more horn players on the present.

Opening on Richardson’s guitar feedbacks and Airto’s percussions, the 11-mins Estavanico is a slow-evolving with some delicious flute and trumpet parts, giving an evident Ellington-feel at first, but evolving into some wild Mwandishi-worthy groovy solos later on. On the slow essence piece, Airto opens up with African percussions, before the piece evolves into a slow-paced affair where gentle electric guitar wails and sumptuous trumpet interventions before settling in a infernal groove. The Airto-penned Xibaba opens on an echoplexed trumpet over some more Airto percussions, before developing into a bossa beat, where Ron Carter discuss things musically with Airto, before slowly descending into Byrd’s echoplexed trumpet interventions. To be honest, I’m wondering whether if this album is not Moreira’s finest moment, much more so than in Weather Report or Return to Forever or solo albums. The closing Dude track is a much louder and not-so delicate affair, set over a solid, sturdy up-tempo groove, but the solos are more conventional as well. IMHO, the slightly weaker track on an otherwise stellar album.

When listening to such an advanced album like EB and comparing it to the Kofi posthumous release, it’s a little strange that the fairly traditional Blue Note label decided to scrap those specific Kofi tracks from the same or surrounding sessions as EB’s, because they’re just as good, if not a tad better. Anyway, if Kofi would have to wait 25 years, EB was there to witness Byrd’s fast developing techniques, which would summit for the awesome Ethiopian Knights album. Make no mistake, though; this one is no-less essential to fusionheads.

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