ERIC GALE — Multiplication (review)

ERIC GALE — Multiplication album cover Album · 1977 · RnB Buy this album from MMA partners
3.5/5 ·
Sean Trane
The perfect companion album to Ginseng Woman, Multiplication was released the following year and features many of the usual suspects present in its predecessor, with the noteworthy addition of bassist Alphonso Johnson, who opens the album on fretless bass. To nsay that the album is inducing excitement enough to provoke its title would be the overstatement of that decade. We’ve got an honest soul-jazz-funk album, with its strengths (impeccable musicianship) and its weaknesses (failure to really enthral and horn and strings over- production)

While relatively interesting in its musical developments, the lengthy opening Morning Glory track will never give me one, despite many gorgeous Bob James arrangements, because its lacks the necessary energy and excitement. Good but not awesome or excellent. Past a promising intro, Gypsy Jello is a mid-tempo boring slightly funk-jazz featuring a good Grover sax solo that had been done hundreds of time before and thousands since. The smooth lo-paced Sometimes holds moments of brilliant musicianship. The gospel blues Mary Don’t you weep is graced (or marred) with a massive church choir section, where BJ’s piano and Gale’s guitar sharing the spotlight. While not bad a track, it’s definitely out of topic with the rest of the album and overstays its welcome halfway through. The more powerful track on the album is the aptly-titled Thumper, with plenty of energy and vitality, but still failing in the spunk dept. Maybe the album’s highlight, it doesn’t suffer from the usual over-production that plagues a lot of the CTI albums. The closing title track is a boring upbeat over-brassy compo that doesn’t prompt you to replay the album.

Don’t get me wrong, this album is filled with the occasional brilliant moment (more so than the preceding GW) and all the musos are absolutely flawless in the execution of the album.
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