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lucas View Drop Down
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Points: 8138 		Direct Link To This Post Topic: Vertù
    Posted: June 02 2004 at 16:35

Lenny White and Stanley formed this supergoup with the addition of Ritchie Kotzen (of Poison fame) on guitar, Karen Briggs on violin and Rachel Z on keyboards. Lenny's drumming is astonishing (I think more mature than on his earlier solo efforts), Stanley makes a good job and Ritchie Kotzen is very good. The addition of violin makes this album close to the works of Mahavishnu or Dixie Dregs. In a nutshell, an essential fusion album and a recommendation for the progarchives files. What do you think of it ?
"Magma was the very first gothic rock band" (Didier Lockwood)
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dropForge View Drop Down
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Points: 608 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 03 2004 at 02:54
Rachel Z is quite a talent (and an attractive one, at that). This is a very solid album, a fine slab of modern fusion with the always awesome Lenny White and Stanley Clarke. The problem is, 90% of the time when I listen to fusion, I usually listen to a '70s fusion album, because that really is still the decade that saw the best fusion released (not that there isn't a lot of kickass stuff out there, today, I just like that '70s fusion sound).

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Dick Heath View Drop Down
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Points: 12813 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 03 2004 at 05:14
I have the record (it is jazz rock , that the sub division of both prog rock and jazz fusion, with some funk  - has to be with Clarke and White as the rhythm section). Therefore as a firm believer that jazz rock (NOT ALL JAZZ FUSION IS JAZZ ROCK) is also a sub class of prog,  I support your case - BTW never had need for this sort of debate in the early 70's. However, I haven't had a great desire to play Vertu much in the last couple of years - 2003 was perhaps the best year for jazz rock releases and reissues in 15 years, many superior to Vertu despite the talent in band.
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Points: 608 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 03 2004 at 10:02

Quote it is jazz rock , that the sub division of both prog rock and jazz fusion, with some funk

Yeah, that sounds fine except for the word prog in Vertu's case.

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Points: 363 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 03 2004 at 13:33

I heard this disc a while back and it struck me like this:

1) Stanley and Lenny still sound great and have a lot of their youthful fire

2) LIked Karen Briggs violin work a lot

3) Rachel Z though I thought was a bad choice in the keyboard department, not that she can't play (she's very good in fact) but more along the lines that she was not a good fit in terms of style and approach, her sounds and such were wayyyy too fluffy and new-agey, completely lacking guts or oomph that this kind of music demands. She would've been far better in another context altogether.

4) I give Richie Kotzen a lot of credit for his guts and trying to reach a high, lofty standard of musicianship but it just didn't quite succeed, he sounded a bit out of his depth.

 
People are puzzled why I don't dig the Stones, well, I listened to the Stones, I tried, and I tried, and I tried, and--I Can't Get No Satisfaction!

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Dick Heath View Drop Down
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Points: 12813 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 04 2004 at 13:32
Originally posted by dropForge dropForge wrote:

Quote it is jazz rock , that the sub division of both prog rock and jazz fusion, with some funk

Yeah, that sounds fine except for the word prog in Vertu's case.

 

I see where you are coming from. The problem is the misuse/abuse of the word "progressive" for 20 years or so. In the early days of progressive rock (when it still literally and clearly progressed), jazz rock was included in the genre because it was one way of progressing rock (you can't argue that Soft Machine Vol 2 or Third  maybe heard as jazz played by jazzers with rock amplification and some rock rhythms). If we were more critical we would say that band x, y or z stopped progressing (literally) after their 4 th or 5th album, and now play stadium rock (or retro-prog) so capitalising on what made them famous. So to the question: does Vertu literally progress the genre with their form of jazzrock/funk, then the answer is probably "not much really". If the question is to be answered on the basis of the messy convention(s) we have got ourselves into, then (as many of us older fans, perceive jazz rock  as a sub-class of  prog rock), Vertu are also proggers.

 

Its times like this whe I Ermm am tempted to form the hard born again prog fan movement, which will only call bands progressive if they add some conceptably new to rock. However, art, newest, life, the universal, are all in the eye/ear/nose/tongue of the beholderEmbarrassed
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