Clear piano and smeared keyboards; smooth guitar; fine deep bass; perfectly tuned drums. Pleasant compositions that you can immediately hum along. Cleverly thought out solos with a seamlessly connecting accompaniment. For a change a track with a guest vocalist. Bob James, Larry Carlton, Nathan East, Harvey Mason. It cannot be missed: we are dealing with a new CD from superstar group Fourplay. On CD
… number eleven, this company simply continues on the path they took in the early nineties. And why not; their pleasant and smoothly polished sound has done them no harm. Energy thus again offers ten neat compositions and a ditto number of neat solos. As a guest vocalist, this time coming star Esperanza Spalding was asked to make a modest contribution to the song Prelude For Lovers. Somewhere on three-quarters of the CD in the track Look Both Ways, something happens: for a moment the band steps out of the fusion straightjacket to show that they also know what to do with more straightforward jazz. If only that happened more often. (HB)more
