No.99
Steps "Smokin' in the Pit " BETTER DAYS(45CY-2865-66)
M.Mainieri M.Brecker S.Gadd D.Grolnick E.Gomez K.Watanabe
* N.Y. Type - L.A. Type - Latin Type - Nac/Aor Type
- Black Contemperary Type - Euro. Type - Afro Type
- Jazz Type - Blues Type - Rock Type
A combination of Mike Mainieri and Michael Brecker had started with "White Elephant ",
and had experienced various sessions since started. After a while,
the combination was re-established again in this band Steps, and the band
moved to Steps Ahead. They are now separated and each of them leads his band.
Those days, four players M.Mainieri/M.Brecker/S.Gadd/D.Grolnick were
representative Fusion stars. And New York type Fusion albums in those days
would record at least one of these four stars' play.
In terms of that, the sound of this album could be regarded as "mainstream of
Fusion ". Although the basist of this album E.Gomez was an acoustic bass man,
this album describes very straight and typical Fusion sound.
Let's talk about categories of Fusion music, there are so many sounds and
styles there. We call a style of Fusion like "N.Y. type ", but that N.Y. type
includes so many charastaristic sounds, such like Chick Corea type, funk type
like Brecker Bros., The 24th Street Band type, GRP, and so on. So we cannot
easily categorize something as "N.Y. type " because it says nothing.
I love N.Y. type sounds around Mike Mainieri, such as this Steps. Nowadays,
it's a little disappointing for fans of these kind of N.Y. type like me
that there's only few successor of this style of N.Y. type except Brecker
Bros.
This album is a live album recorded at Roppongi Pit-inn, and it will show
you typical sound of those good old N.Y.style. In this session, all six
players including Kazumi Watanabe deployed tremendously powerful improvisation
battle. I couldn't be there, but can get the image of the session through
the album very vividly and colorfully.
In the future, I think it will be possible that M.Mainieri and M.Brecker
form the combination again, but I suppose it will be difficult to have a
session play adding S.Gadd and D.Grolnick to the combination.
I hope I could witness their sparkling battle play.
(I guess it might be usual thing for them.)
 | | | | |  | | | | | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Slow |  | Speedy | |||||||||
| Light | | Heavy | |||||||||
| Mellow | | Hard | |||||||||
| Lyrical | | Cool | |||||||||
| Melodious | | Out of melody/code | |||||||||
| Conservative | | Progresseve/Tricky | |||||||||
| Ensemble | | Interplay |
