STREAMLINE

While "Streamline" is certainly not as accomplished a work as the classic "Venusian Summer", it does merit its own place in Lenny White's discography , as well as being a rather original symbiosis of jazz, funk and fusion, armed with some harsher guitar work, a rather unusual combination that has not been overused to say the least. The list of luminaries include guitarist extraordinaire Jamie Glaser (JL Ponty), famous bass man Marcus Miller and finally Earth, Wind and Fire keyboardist Larry Dunn, who certainly adds to the funky vibe. Guitarist Nick Moroch has worked with Eddie Jobson's Zinc and provides a fair amount of crunch. That being said, this is a tale of two sides, one of pleasure and one of pain. Let's start with the torture first and get it out of the way. The first 4 tracks are painful. There are also 3 mini tracks under a minute that add absolutely nothing to the mix.

"Struttin" is bearable, a pure funk/rock hybrid with a chugga-chugga beat and expected flow. Kind of sloppy, which negates all the value within, as Lenny does this binary beat that lacks any conviction. There is a rather unfortunate rendering of the classic Beatles tune "Lady Madonna" which cannot even come close to the brilliant original, with way too much urban shrieking courtesy of Chaka Khan, a musical Swiss fondue that will make one cringe. The messy and disjointed "12 Bars from Mars" is presumably referring to intergalactic saloons that serve watered down drinks with soggy 'rocks' as this just goes nowhere in a warp hurry. "Earthlings" is sadly even worse, a stringy cheese of disco-inspired yuck, with a pedant vocal from Diane Reeves and a wholly predictable Moroch guitar solo that could have been so much more fulfilling.

Then, out of the blue, the album reverts to what it should have been, a serious jazz-rock extravaganza, though one has to wonder with a strange title like "Pooh Bear" (egad!). But the sweet scat-voiced background gives way to some smoking hot bass runs, a shuffling drum beat and some inspiring moments. Yeah, it's funky but technically sound and adventurous. Cool pickin' on guitar makes this a surprising illumination. "I'll See You Soon" is the longest track and serves up some interesting fare led by a looping bass run, as Marcus Miller is quite the virtuoso, a simple lilt that also fancies a slippery and bright Don Blackman synth solo. A favorable track again. The bass playing on "Night Games" is fully inspired and phenomenal, as if Marcus was the only one on board with this session, a nice Fender Rhodes piano section from Blackman and Lenny finally inspiring his wrists to go beyond the norm.

Not a bad album but not really anything special either. Just interesting. Nowhere near does one approach the effect of "Venusian Summer" and that Beatles cover version should be banned.

3 restructures