The people from Mad About Records are known to do flawless work and deliver jazz marvels on a continuous basis. It is no different this time. Instead of Brazil, the focus is now on a freebop opus from 1981. Malachi Thompson combines a wild mixture of movements and ideas on this recording, his first solo release. A rhythm and blues school meets the revolutionary ideas of the Chicago AACM, avant-garde jazz and spiritual. In turn, however, the whole thing is based on a clear hard bop foundation, which has been expanded to include playfulness and openness, the possibility of freeing oneself from the rigid corset. And it’s not without reason that this all happened at a time when neo-straight ahead became en vogue. You notice: »The Seventh Son« is a fork in the road that unites the star-shaped roads as one big square. The result is one thing above all: sensual. Funky and swingy, a lot of fusion, with Latin and Brazilian references also in the rhythms. Danceable like a disco record, but not too overdone, so that it is plain turntable gold. After all, the record is called »The Seventh Son« and that is Gad in the Bible. And the word Gad is Hebrew and means happiness. You don’t need to know more than that.
Fisher
Fisher
Mad About