CURTIS FULLER — Smokin' (review)

CURTIS FULLER — Smokin' album cover Album · 1972 · Soul Jazz Buy this album from MMA partners
3.5/5 ·
Mssr_Renard
Although the line-up to this album is a great line-up (featuring hardboppers Cedar Walton and Billy Higgins amongst others), the aim of this album is mainstream funk.

It is a pleasant album, with some great solos, some nice electric guitar by Ted Dunbar, some funky and swinging grooves by Higgins, but it lacks a certain something.

Fuller tries hard here to make a mainstream-record, even the label is called mainstream, and the compositions in fact are not that bad, but somehow I don't like the overuse of the electric piano (courtesy of Cedar Walton) on this album. Also the electric bass is used on one to many songs.

Especially the first song drags on for too long, without really going anywhere. Fuller had made so much better records, as a leader or with the Jazztet / Jazz Messengers.

I do like the solos: trumpet by Bill Hardman, trombone, saxes by Jimmy Heath and guitar by Ted Dunbar. The songs on the B-side are more hardboppish, but are mostly ruined by the electric bass. The purist jazz-song is Stella By Starlight with acoustic bass and acoustic piano, and some magnificent soloing by Fuller. A real treat!

As a jazzfunk album it is okay, somewhat reminescent of what Nucleus was putting out these days. But there are already so many of these jazzrock/softfunk albums, that it almost sounds too easylistening for me.
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