THE OLD BUM'S RUSH

After three great albums, Tony Williams released this one - not bad, but really strange one! First of all - he employed female vocalist there, with strong soul-jazzy voice. Album's mix is made with vocals in front of all the sound, so what you are listening is mostly vocal jazz-soul fusion there.

Singer's voice is no bad, but far from Julie Driscoll, who this album possibly targeted. But even bigger problem is stylistically her singing is hardly connected with music played by Tony' s team. I can't say the result is bad, but it's kind of too strange (or too experimental, depends on your taste).

If you will remove vocals, there are more interesting things - great drumming, unusual, but often interesting keyboards and very energetic and in fact brave electric experimental jazz-rock with strong r'n'b influences. Possibly, all album was strongly influenced by Brian Auger recent works.

Separate musical pieces are excellent, but in whole all the music with vocals over the top sounds weird. I still really can enjoy it, but this album is possibly Tony Williams weakest point. Not strange, the band was disbanded after release of this release, and Tony returned after some time with great New Lifetime.