Customer Reviews

III

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

No surprises here! If you know the players involved, then you know what you're going to get. And what you get is just great. Fun, smile-making and a happy swell time.

For the unfamiliar, this music falls into the category of soul/groove jazz. And yes, jazz funk. While not technically astounding, it is clear that the artists create this music from a place of greater understanding - which is to say that they play what needs to be played to make successful music within the genre, not EVERYTHING they know. This is not a Mahavishnu record. It won't blow you away with a chops display. It pulverizes you with deep pockets, has great melodies, shows excellent interplay and is well-arranged. The hallmarks of great soul jazz disks. Of course that's just my take on the sound.

Also just my take... this record kills. Each player is at their best, and doing best their individual "things." And with that, it should be noted that the Nola feel is there. Robert Walter plays some perfect left hand. skerik is nicely understated. The trombone work is an excellent complement to his sax playing here. And Will Bernard is a refreshing switch from the players we are so used to hearing collaborate with Moore. While I dig Charlie Hunter as much as the next guy, Bernard brings a nice one-thing-at-a-time guitar feel to this session that the first Moore record (and subsequent Garage A Trois records) didn't have.

It is funky and tight, and we all know that when we're discussing these players, that is most likely the intent from the gitgo.

Mission Accomplished.

For about a good year now I have been a big fan of Robert Walter. For about a good 3 months now, I have been a fan of Will Bernard. Ever since I got this CD a few weeks ago, I have been a fan of Stanton Moore.

This CD, despite being filed under "Stanton Moore" is a group effort. Were I to have heard it without knowing whose name was on the disc, I would have guessed Walter's. While all three have shining moments on this disc, Walter wrote the five opening tracks. And while the playing is at all times tight and sensitive (as organ trios have to be), the composition is really what makes this CD. The songs all have great grooves (even the slow ones), and hummable melodies.

Besides the composition, what is most noticeable about this disc is the production and how appropriate it is to the music here. It is very raw; actually recorded fairly live in the Preservation Jazz Hall on portable recording equipment. Moore gets a very Bonham-esque heavy sound (not to mention his boomy jazz bass-drum). Bernard's sharp sound is a good blend with Moore's (and, yes, Moore is up in the mix on all tunes, though not excessively so). Walter's B3 organ provides a soft cushion to round out the edgy production.

The other thing seperating this disc from so many other funky attempts is that these guys (and the 'guest' horn players, Skerik and Mark Mullins) really understand funk, and the New Orleans approach to it. On several of these tracks, one could close their eyes and hear the Meters, particularly Moore's 'borrowing' of several of "Zigaboo" Modeliste's drum 'tricks'. The group's groove and feel is impeccable throughout and even the slower tracks at the end of the disc are about as 'in the pocket' as one can get.

All of this is another way of saying that if you like New Orleans style funk, good, sensitive playing, and good tunes, you will want to check this CD out. Especially, i would reccomend this for folks who really like the sound of Medeski, Martin, and Wood when they choose to remain in this tonal hemisphere.

Stanton Moore picks the Zeppelinesque title of III for his third solo CD, and he even covers a Led Zep song, "When The Levee Breaks". This CD is formatted like his others, in that it starts off funky, from "Poison Pushy" to "Maple Plank". The last three songs shift the tone, this time to a sorrowful tone with three cover songs related (indirectly) to New Orleans' Katrina disaster. The band is mostly a trio, Robert Walter plays organ and handles the bass notes (on the organ). Will Bernard plays bluesy guitar. Skerik plays sax on five of the songs. Stanton has made a lot of music with these guys in one form or the other. The CD is simply very good, it might be slightly better than "Flyin' the Koop". It's great acoustic funk, with well-written songs, starts, stops, syncopation, solos, and so forth.

The album may well have the name Stanton Moore on it, but this is a collective trio plus two album, which is quite unlike anything that the musicians have put together before. It's totally unlike "Money Shot" and also the last two Robert Walter 'solo' albums. It's true that Moore is mixed well forward on all the tracks, but it has a very live and spontaneous feel to it, and Walter and Will Barnard are given lots of space to spread out, as are the two guests Skerik on tenor sax and Mark Mullins on trombone.Five of the tracks are Robert Walter composed, but Barnard composed the excellent "Dunkin' in the deep" and Mullins wrote "Chilcock". Favourite picking is always difficult, but here I'd have to go for the excellent version of Abdullah Ibrahim's "Water from an Ancient Well", Walter's "(Don't be comin' with no) Weak Sauce" and the aforementioned "Dunkin' in the deep". The quality and ambience of the recorded sound is excellent, and it's to be hoped that is the first of several recorded outings for this trio. Don't bring any preconceptions about what you might expect this to sound like, have the faith to believe that a purchase will be worth it!

Another really good album from this phenomenal drummer. Stanton's feel is truly individual and results in music that grooves like no other. This album has something for everyone, and everthing for drummers. Be that his tricky time, as illustrated in Licorice, his solid yet emotive grooves as found in Poison Pushy and my favourite, Maple Plank, or his passionate solos, the best of which for me is at the end of Big 'Uns Get The Ball Rolling. Great production too - a flamboyant, exciting sound.

I don't think anything will beat All Kooked Out, with Skerik and Charlie Hunter, but this comes satisfyingly close. A really good mix of tracks, even a few slow ones at the end (which I'm not huge on, but if you're in the mood for it, very nice music all the same). Not the best place to start off if you've never heard Stanton Moore before - get All Kooked Out first! But for the fans, you'll love it. He's amazing.

With the tragedy of Katrina, Stanton Moore faced many challenges and hardships both personally and profesionally. He's a survivor. Instead of succumbing to these obstacles, Stanton decides to rent out Preservation Hall record this amazing third disc. The opening track, Poison Pushy is Stanton and the New Orleans funk sound at its best. Dynamic, rhythmic and passionate, simply put, this music has soul. I have been a Stanton Moore fan for a while now and despite the recent setbacks, he just keeps getting better and better. Robert Walter and Will Bernard are magnificent and the cover of Led Zep's When the Levee Breaks is both sad and dramatic. It is performed with class. If you are a Stanton fan you won't be disappointed and if you are new to the New Orleans sound you'll have a nice taste of Stanton Moore's amazing talents.

Musician's musician? Underappreciated artist? Magnet for talented contemporaries? Stanton Moore is all of these things, and more. And so, even if his third album as a leader does not make him more of a household name, it certainly contributes to an already estimable and original body of work.

That his latest recording, the uncomplicatedly titled III, arrives little more than a year after Hurricane Katrina is both appropriate and inevitable: as much as any present-day musician, Moore is a product of and ambassador for the Big Easy. Born and bred in New Orleans, Moore cut his teeth in the early `90s funk band Galactic, and throughout that decade formed friendships and cultivated associations with kindred spirits in and outside of his hometown, which culminated in his first solo outing All Kooked Out!. The line-up on his even better second solo album, 2001's Flyin' the Koop, reads like a who's who of many of the more cerebral jam-band jazzers of the new millennium: Skerik (sax player and sonic provocateur, who has played with seemingly everyone, from Les Claypool's Frog Brigade to his own incredible band Critters Buggin'), Karl Denson (Greyboy Allstars, Karl Denson's Tiny Universe), and Chris Wood (Medesk, Martin and Wood). At the same time, Moore joined forces with eight-string guitar wizard Charlie Hunter and, along with the peripatetic Skerik, formed the drolly named Garage a Trois, who have proceeded to casually dash off inspired albums, culminating in their latest, 2005's tour de force Outre Mer.

Less than a month after Outre Mer, Hurricane Katrina hit, bringing New Orleans a one-two punch of Nature's ire and governmental incompetence, and it is in the wake of this disaster that Moore assembled the band that recorded III. Moore was among the innumerable residents who experienced substantial property damage, but made his presence felt in Katrina's aftermath, donating equipment and participating in a number of benefit concerts. Needless to say, his decision to record in the renowned Preservation Hall in New Orleans is a statement of both defiance and reverence.

Perhaps because of the self-induced pressure--or lack thereof--of making an album in the French Quarter, Moore has risen to the occasion and produced a very personal, yet engaging effort. As with every endeavor Moore oversees, there is an organic, almost effortless groove, and the funk flows freely. Much of the dirty authenticity this album achieves is attributable to organist Robert Walter (Greyboy Allstars), who composed half of the songs. And those (understandably) expecting to hear Charlie Hunter will be (pleasantly) surprised by the appearance of Will Bernard (T.J. Kirk). Luckily, Skerik lends his inimitable assistance and trombonist Mark Mullins (Bonerama) makes some stellar contributions. The first seven songs cruise along with confidence and a Big Easy élan, as if this group has played together for years. Early highlights include "Licorice", which sounds like a greasier Medeski, Martin and Wood, with Bernard's less-is-more soloing providing depth and edge. "Chilcock" is an irresistible jam straight outta J.B.'s territory, featuring some tasty trombone licks courtesy of Mullins. By the seventh track, "Maple Plank", Bernard really starts to assert himself, and suddenly the thick and frothy organ is undercut with some barbed wire slide guitar while Moore pumps the engine like a cool conductor.

Thus far, the album has been a charged and exciting affair, but it is on the last three songs that the proceedings--thus far very solid--are elevated to something quite special. The trifecta of covers begins with a poignant rendition of Abdullah Ibrahim's "Water from an Ancient Well". The stirring restraint of this gorgeous composition is followed by an ominous take on "When the Levee Breaks", a Delta blues song originally written in response to the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 (another remake of which consequently concludes the most popular album of a moderately well-known rock band). A song that at once recalls a recent catastrophe and portends a larger one (which, of course, came to pass), the message is no longer a warning so much as a tribute to powerless voices that should not be silenced. Moore's snare and the somber organ turn this into a sort of military-style waltz, a properly elegiac treatment of this long-predicted, and arguably preventable tragedy, while Bernard's sinister slide provides indignant commentary on the sorry state of affairs. And, finally, the "mini-suite" culminates with the spiritual "I Shall Not Be Moved", an appropriately serene declaration that manages to be both triumphant and redemptory. To be certain, this is superlative music performed by artists at the top of their games, and while that is more than enough, some albums simply cannot be separated from the context of their creation. That Stanton Moore chose these last three songs and recorded on the soil that made him a native son only augments this soulful encomium for the city he works in, and for.

[...]

This is a poorly mastered cd. It's funny, it has all the hallmarks of bad mastering (clipping, distortion, massive dynamic range compression, bad sounding drums, etc.); yet the engineer hasn't maximized the volume on every track. Usually disks are mastered this way to max out volume. I wonder if the damage was done to this one during mixing or possibly recording. So I cannot say whether it was Bruce Barielle's fault or not.

If you want to hear just how bad clipped, compressed, distorted drums can sound listen to track 9 between 4:30 and 4:50. It's hilarious to think someone actually put forth an effort to make it sound that way. It reminds me of the days of cassette recording when I'd have the peak meter way too far in the red.

As for the actual music itself, I was kept at an arm's distance by the poor mastering so I can't give a 100% accurate rating, but I think it's 4 star music with definately 0 star mastering (or possibly recording or mixing or all three).

PS If you don't know what I'm on about, go to wikipedia and look up "loudness war" or google 'pleasurize music'.

This is absolute, pure and unrestrained blues/soul/funk in it's finest form. Moore is a great drummer and demonstrates that very well here. He is comfortable behind the kit, especially in this type of format and lineup. Great percussion technique. Superb skills showcased. With him are familiar soul brothers Robert Walter on the super cool funked out hammond B3 organ and Will Bernard on a cooking guitar. Joining them on this session are Sherik on tenor sax and Mark Mullins on trombone. Every track is a gem. Some of my favorites are Poison Pushy, Don't Be Comin' With No (Weak Sauce) and Licorice all penned by Robert Walter, Will Bernards Dunkin' In The Deep and Chilcock by Mark Mullins. They do a great reading of Zepplins When The Levee Breaks as well, I'm sure as a tribute to the Katrina disaster. All of Stantons records are excellent but this one ranks up there around the top for me. There are many fine reviews written on this release but I felt that I just wanted to express my thoughts on how good this is to me. Fantastic musicianship, superb compositions and brilliant production work. If you like that gutsy, bluesy soul funk then you have got to check this out. I give it a strong and solid 5 stars. Check out my other reviews.

John W. Shearer
(ART MULE SNAPFISH)

This is full of excellent funk. I'm going to use it as a bed for my guitar woodshedding at home. By the way, Will Bernard's guitar playing is really fine.