Product Description

What happens when musicians interested in expanding the vocabulary and repertoire of jazz beyond the hard-bop/post-bop canon are also involved in getting as much of their sound aspossible out of acoustic and analogue instruments? With musicians like Christian McBride around, we get to find out.
Case in point: this band's arrangement of the Police's "Walking on the Moon" is anything but cheesy. As drummer Rodney Green keeps up a steady late-night sizzle on the cymbals, the leader phrases the melody in harmonics on electric bass, while James Carter provides an obbligato on bass clarinet, and David Gilmour fills in with rolling acoustic guitar arpeggios. It's completely hypnotic, and there's nary a sample in sight. When the keyboards do surface, on the title track, they're still underpinned by McBride's fat-bottomed upright and Green's insistent, everywhere-at-once traps, and saxophonist Ron Blake breaks away for a solo over a relentlessly hard-swinging groove.

Track Listing

1. Aja
2. Uhura's Moment Returned
3. Xerxes
4. Lullaby For A Ladybug
5. Science Fiction
6. Walking On The Moon
7. Havona
8. I Guess I'll Have To Forget
9. Butterfly Dreams
10. Via Mwandishi
11. Sci-fi Outro

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #139168 in Music
• Released on: 2000-09-11
• Number of discs: 1

Customer Reviews

Sci-Fi - A review
I must start by saying that this is a fantastic album - i write quite a lot of reviews and i don't give a five star rating unless it is exceptionally good.
This album has caught McBride on the cusp of moving away from his straight ahead jazz roots to pastures new.The electric base is used to great effect on some of the tracks here.
My pick of the whole album is "Via Mwandishi" which pays homage to the Herbie Hancock track of the same name from the seventies. This is a fusion/groove orientated piece but still provides excellent solo spots from the underrated Ron Blake on tenor sax and Guest soloist James Carter on bass clarinet - both soloing in the same vein that Bennie Maupin did for both Hancock and Eddie Henderson in the seventies.There is a wonderfully serene version of Sting's "Walkin on the moon" with McBride soloing on both electric bass and acoustic bass with bow to great effect.
The title track "Science Fiction",from which McBride got his inspiration from the "Matrix" movie,incorparates A heavy rock'ish beat,Rock style electric guitar,and electric keyboard/synths and a great solo from Blake again on soprano sax.
The opening track "Aja" is probably the most straight ahead jazz piece and was origionally penned by Donald Fagan & walter Becker.
This album,for me,is fairly unique in that it seamlessly weaves acoustic jazz and electric instruments in a way that sounds fresh,modern and pretty damn good!
For fans of the Miles Davis fusion era,Weather report,Marcus Miller and straight ahead jazz fans looking for a little bit more than boppish acoustic jazz.
Great stuff.Buy with confidence.Enjoy !