Feelin' It

Feelin' It demonstrates that there is still a lot of life in the notion of marrying strong funk and r'n'b grooves to Jazz. Tim Gilson's bubbling electric bass is crucial in maintaining the drive. He grounds both the strutting funk of "Feelin' It" and "It's Not That Easy" as well as the broad, crawling pace of "Let's Fall In Love", a tune enlivened by Stan Bock's and Renato Caranto's soloing. "Up In The Air" has a choppy New Orleans groove set up by drummer Christopher Brown, funky horn polyphony and a bulging Pastorius-like bass solo by Gilson. There's a lovely pastoral gospel feel to "Horizon" with alto sax and trombone harmonizing while Clay Giberson's move to electric piano on "Bein' Green" gives that piece more of a jazz fusion feel with Caranto really spiraling out in his solo spot. "Blues In The Shed" is a brawny bit of hard bop, "For Pepper" is a delicate four-horn salute to Jim Pepper (which comes before, not after, "Super Hero" despite what the CD cover says) and "Super Hero" is a bouncy ska-reggae number. "Look Out" ends the set with a lush soul-reggae take on Stevie Wonder's "Isn't She Lovely" which supposedly has "Mack The Knife" mixed in somewhere. This is a really varied display of what can be done under the electric jazz-soul umbrella.