Customer Reviews

Twennynine With Lenny White

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Lenny White,drummer for Return To Forever in the mid 1970's and solo jazz fusion artist later in the decade,began to dive into standard R&B/funk on his 1978 solo album 'Streamline' and emmediatly after that formed Twennynine-an R&B/funk cmobo who scored a hit in 1979 with the classic "Peanut Butter".This is the bands self-titled 1980 follow up,and for all concerned it leans very heavily into the R&Bsy side of funk,featuring alot of male/female vocal exchanges,slick production values and the requisit horns.It's all together very typical of early 1980's funk/R&B in general,with one important factor-it's completely devoid of even the one ounce of jazz fusion always present on any Lenny White album.The sassy,humorous funk of "Kid Stuff" most resembles Twennynine's 'classic' sound as heard on their debut 'Best Of Friends'.Otherwise "My Melody","Fancy Dancer" and "Just Right For Me" set the tone for the album-straight ahead grooving R&B and light funk with no fusion referrances.Only the brief snippit "11'th Fanfare" reminds the listener who Lenny White was.So as an example of Jamaica,Queens's

then thriving jazz/R&B/funk musical community in the early 80's 'Twennynine With Lenny White' is a treasure.But those looking for White's more bombastic and anthemic 70's jazz fusion will not find what they're looking for here.So for what it is this is well made and concieved album.

Well one thing you really can't fault Lenny White with is being repetitive. Even as his music evolved from the frantic jazz-rock fusion of Return To Forever through his solo career,each one of his albums had a certain difference in flavor to them. It represented a constant state of musical growth which actually continues up to this day. In 1979 Lenny White,along with some of the band members from his late 70's solo albums put the band Twennynine together. They had an album called Best of Friends in 1979. And it introduced them to the world with the (at that time) very futurist synth bass led "Peanut Butter". One of the qualities that made Twennynine such a big hit was Don Blackman,who along with his musicianship,singing and writing was carrying the band as much as (if not more than) Lenny was himself. By this time Blackman is gone,on the cusp of beginning his own recording career. So to add more personality Lenny brings in the female touch to the band with singer Tanya Willoughby. Unlike a lot of bands who build their sounds a female vocalist,who stereotypically end up leaving to start solo careers Willoughby is very much a team participant,involved more in collective trade offs than leads. Also aside from the vocal end the musical approach was a lot different too.

Twennynine's debut album was based in a rather spare keyboard oriented sound built squarely between Blackman and White. On this White along with keyboardists/director/producers Denzil Miller and EWF's Larry Dunn the production style of this album embraces a slicker sophistifunk type sound,with synthesizer sounds that are creamier than they are flamboyantly spacy. Overall it's a more R&B funk album than a jazz funk one,with numbers such as "Just Right For Me","My Melody","Fancy Dancer" and and "Slip Away" are very much in that type of music. On the other band "Kid Stuff" and "It's Music,It's Magic" return to something more of the P-Funk style influence of "Peanut Butter". One of the most interesting aspects of this album are the more melodic numbers such as "Love And Be Loved","Back To You" and "We Had To Break Away" all carry with them that certain melodic gospel soul joy of the EWF influence Larry Dunn brings to the fore. Toward the end of that song cycle,in particular on the more fusion oriented "The 11'th Fanfare" does that album breach from the albums more R&B context and more towards jazz,though still through the filter of fusion.

It's sort of a pity that Twennynine collectively only recorded three albums. But that record trio represents a great deal of growth and variety that represented Lenny White's transition from jazz fusion drumming to more R&B/pop oriented approaches. Either way he went Lenny's music was always funk either way he came at it. After the early 80's Lenny White would basically leave behind band leading and recording for the remainder of the decade. But this period was by no means an insignificant for Lenny White. Ricky Vincent,a writer I often refer to because he's one of only a few writers who even go into the subject of funk history,himself once referred to Lenny White as a musician who simplified his drumming sound at the end of the 70's to accommodate the urban contemporary market. As this album shows that change was a lot more than a mere change in drumming style. The entire musical orientation of Lenny White was going through a change. To say it was simplified? That is probably an understatement. The type of R&B funk Lenny/Twennynine were offering was very much of the challenging sort. Than again,funk by it's very nature does tend to be that way. So this is one of those albums Lenny made probably with the intent of broadening his audience. And even if that didn't happen it did produce a cult following of fans I suppose I am a part of. And if so,proud to be that at any rate.

To simply put it excellent,I had this in the vinyl format when it first came out years ago,lost it,had been looking for it ever since,glad I found it,,excellent,,I rate this 10 stars.