Customer Reviews

Significant Gains

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2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

If you can locate this album in any format GET IT!Greg
Philliganes is the talented keyboardist/producer behind Quincy
Jones and Rod Temperton on their famous pop collaberations in the
early 1980's and the music featured on 'Significant Gains' is no
exception to Phillingane's brilliant rule!The album opens with a
very Stevie Wonderish turn on the well crafted R&B of "Girl Talk".But tunes like "Talking It Up All Night","Big Man" and the
instrumental "Maxxed Out" feature enough stripped down turns to
make their funk seem very real indeed!"Forever Now" and "Doing It
All For Love" would have both mad excellent singles too but sadly
this and it's 1984 follow up 'Pulse' were grossly overlooked and
the least this CD reissue deserves is one positive rating!That
way anyone reading this will be encouraged to pick up this album
before it again goes out of print and forgotton again.It will
be the best money you'll spend!

Mr. Phillinganes was responsible for all of the Jacksons' rhythms, and provided music for plenty of other top acts of the late 1970s and 1980s. He put out a few albums of his own in the '80s and for some unknown reason, they were all overlooked. Mr. Phillinganes is not the best vocalist around, but he can hold his own and does a fine fine job here, not to mention his top-notch musical skills. Every song is great here, especially TAKIN' IT UP ALL NIGHT, the ballad FOREVER NOW, DO IT ALL FOR LOVE, and the final track featuring the awesome Paulinho DaCosta doing his usual thunderous percussion. I shelled out nearly 30 bucks for this CD and it was worth every dollar spent.

This has got to be some of the finest R&B I've come across from the 1980s. With the talent involved, what less could you expect? Every song is top-notch here, well written and well performed. Though Mr. Phillinganes is well-known more for his keyboarding skills, he does a fine job here with the vocals. Standout tracks are the gorgeous "Forever Now", "Do it All for Love", "I Don't Want to Be the One", and "Takin' it Up All Night". Get this and you'll find yourself in for a treasure. Only wish his "Pulse" album would be released on to CD, but check out that vinyl if you can, as well.

This is just to offer a little perspective and counterpoint to the enthusiastic reviews: I'm a huge Mouse fan (Phillinganes' nick name), and though I still own the LP (in fact, it's the only one I've kept) and have digitized this album, it is nowhere near the mark(s) given.

Greg Phillinganes, for those not familiar with his work, has been widely considered the ultimate studio session pianist/keyboardist for several decades, to the extent that his peers joke they know immediately when he's out of town (touring with Eric Clapton) because they see a surge in session calls.

Yes, the musicianship and production are flawless (note: this is a 1981 Pop/R&B album, so don't expect blazing solos from the master), but it takes great compositions (or at least songs) to make a great album and "Significant Gains" simply doesn't deliver in that department.

Okay, Girl Talk starts off well enough, with a Michael McDonald "Minute by Minute" type of intro, until the underpowered vocal kicks in, that is, and the next track, "Baby, I do love you" does nothing to dispel the impression that this is a collection of works expressed in a second language. "Takin' it up all night" barely deserves to be mentioned here, so cliched and formulaic is its packaging.

And this is the problem here: this album, with a couple of exceptions perhaps, is all about packaging. Some people buy Gucci and Armani just because of the name, and there is some business justification in packaging, but one would, and does, expect a higher standard of quality from such a great musician.

The exceptions to which I refer are "Forever" (well, the first, Stevie Wonderesque-half, at least) and every single note of "I don't want to be the one" which is well composed and the gem in the lot, despite its somewhat depressing lyrics ("I don't want to be the one to say, it's all over, please go away..."). This is the only track where Mouse stretches out a bit on the Rhodes, for those who might be interested.

Sadly the other tracks are not even worth mentioning. It's up to you, then, to decide whether you're such a die-hard fan of Mouse that you're willing to pay $30+ for one and a half songs.

Greg Phillinganes: renowned session player,writer and (especially in this case) vocalist who seemed to have a huge solo career ahead of him based not only on the pedigree of whom he played with but also on his own talents. It was probably somewhat overwelming to a degree since Phillinganes is best known for his work with two major musical titans-Stevie Wonder and Michael Jackson. And to a degree,vocally and musically this album is filled with many references to both of them. In fact,on many different levels Phillinganes combined the styles he'd drawn upon himself playing with both artists to arrive at his own sound but for anyone searching out this largely known album. In short he was able to bring Jackson's sleek dance funk music into play with the type of classical/jazz style melodic chordings and unique rhythms of Wonder. So if you are even a casual fan of Stevie Wonder and Michael Jackson's music in the early 80's than this might be just the album for you.

It was released in 1981 during one of R&B musics strangest periods. Disco was dead,funk wasn't so there was music with a groove and the production gloss remained. Some referred to the music as "urabn" others as sophistifunk or "boogie" but whatever one calls it that's what defines this. He starts off the album with an 80's urban funk take on the standard "Girl Talk",featuring a wonderful Michael McDonald-like jazzy rock rhodes solo (as well as a sax solo for Sadao Watanabe) and than goes into the heavy Stevie Wonder like chordings of the shuffling synth funk groove "Baby,I Do Love You". On the more direct sophistifunk end are "Taking It Up All Night" and "Do It All For Love" but this album is generally about songcraft and rhythm and there's plenty of that on the smoother,VERY heavily Wonder inspired "I Don't Want To Be The One",an easy highlite of the album as well as the lyrically meloncaughly but chordally beautiful ballad "Forever Now".

"Big Man" is another strong tune here,a Michael Sembello composition this time following more of Stevie Wonder's rockier style funk on a pointed lyric about despotic public figures who hide behind the law and politics-just about perfect for it's time actually. The two most unique songs here are the vocorder heavy proto electro groove of "Maxxed Out" and the African ritual inspired closer "The Call",which is more of a chant than a song but a compelling way to end this album. Yet somehow Phillinganes's apparent hopes of becomming something of a new Stevie Wonder (as well as being a spin off artist if you look at it) didn't come to much as this album barely got noticed and his career as a solo performer never took off the way his career as a session musician did. And that's a pitty because Phillinganes WAS one of only a few big session players who possessed a singular enough talent to emmerge as a huge and even perhaps innovative figure in the same pop/R&B/funk world his more famous clients inhabited and that he didn't gain more notice from this debut solo outing alone is extremely unjust and unfair.

I was looking for a copy of Pulse, which was released by Greg Phillinganes in 1984. Unfortunately, it was a cassette, and it did what cassettes do -- the tape stretched out and ultimately became unplayable (I can't remember if it was one that was eaten by the car stereo).

I can say that I'm really pleased to see that he is still doing a lot of session work. I was lucky enough to be at Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp (also referred to as "Outerlochen") in 1970. Greg Phillinganes was there for a two-week theater session, while most of us were there for band or orchestra. He would sit down at the piano and a crowd would instantly gather. While most of the musicians there were quite talented, we all knew that we were witnessing a truly gifted musician -- the rest of us had to work at it, but Greg was phenomenally talented even at 14 or 15.

I was thrilled when I saw his name on the credits of Songs in the Key of Life in 1976 -- he had made it into the recording world, which he richly deserved. So, about 10 years later, when I saw a cassette with his name on it, I bought it immediately. I only wish it had been made out of something more sturdy (the Texas heat takes a terrible toll on those tapes -- CDs were a godsend in this part of the country).

For those of you unfamiliar with where he went to school, Cass Tech (Cass Technical High School) was the Detroit school for the arts & sciences. Only the best got in to Cass Tech. Stevie Wonder is an alumnus of Cass, as well.

If anyone knows where I can get my hands on Pulse, or some form of it, please post. This guy is one really amazing keyboard artist, and I remember him as being one of the best people I've ever met - and that was a LONG time ago.