Track Listing

1. Wiggle Waggle
2. Fat Mama
3. Tell Me A Bedtime Story
4. Oh Oh Here He Comes
5. Jessica
6. Fat Albert Rotunda
7. Lil' Brother

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #36807 in Music
• Released on: 2001-01-29
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: Original recording remastered
• Dimensions: .15 pounds

Customer Reviews

Essential Jazz-Funk Odyssey from the Herbmeister
For a long time this album was only available at collector's fairs (on vinyl - and costly) or as part
of a triple-album CD compilation (along with Mwandishi and Crossings). To finally be able to buy, and
at a bargain price, one of the greatest albums ever made (I almost said "in the seventies") is a blessed
relief. Why oh why did it take Warner so long to get this one out again on it's own? This album is not
as cleanly recorded as Headhunters, but the saturated and slightly distorted deep-fried funk is
so greasy that even digital sanitising has been unable to clean up these artery-clogging grooves.
Most of the tunes are rambling bluesy fonk, over which various jazz maestros give their chops a work-
out worthy of an olympic athlete choc-full of peformance enhancing pharmaceuticals. Wonderful
layers of brass, flutes and reeds elevate these pieces to a truly godlike level of excellence.

Tell Me a Bedtime Story is something else - the album is worth the price for this track alone. Have no fear
though - every single track is superb - there's not one duffer! Bedtime Story (along with the very mellow Jessica),
stands out from the rest by simple virtue of not being a monstrosity of funk, leaning more to Herbie's jazz side. It is the
most heavily arranged piece, with beautiful flute harmonisations, that build towards heavier, brassier
sections.

For those who, like myself, enjoy the mellifluous tones of the Rhodes, Hammond et al, phat brass,
and chuck-a-wah guitar in generous doses, this album is a must. Far earthier and more robust than
Headhunters and Thrust etc, yet also far groovier than the outre jazz-noodling of Mwandishi or Crossings,
Fat Albert straddles Herbie's middle way, just as it also sits 'twixt the fantastic Blue Note Era
recordings, and his later and more electric sound (the perhaps musically less interesting disco-funk of
the late seventies and early eighties). Many producers, musicians and DJ's have dipped into Fat Albert's
generously stocked refrigerator to enhance their own dubious cred. Tunes like Wiggle-Waggle and Lil'
Brother will get 'em dancing even if they're clinically dead, but will also propel the serious sofa-surfer on a
sassy hip-swaying, head nodding, wiggle-waggling, stride through the sun-drenched streets of an imaginary
San Fran, man.

Many with a penchant for liner notes and personnel listings will be dissappointed by the lack of any
such info, in the place of which we are given some poetic ramblings of debatable merit. There is also
nothing about the history of the album (I am led to believe that it came about because of music commissioned
for a Bill Cosby TV show), but you do at least get a reproduction of the wonderful original cover
art. However, the reason I bought this album was to bathe in gallons of life-giving fonk, the true essence
of man. And so, my good friend, that is what I recommend you do!

Try and get this out of your head if you can!
I've had this album less than a week and already I am enslaved to it! This is serious, butt-shakin' funk. Two of the tunes immediately caught my ear when I listened to the 1-minute excepts on the Amazon website ("Wiggle-Waggle" and "Oh! Oh! Here He Comes") and, believe me, the full versions deliver all that they promise!

The music was originally written as the theme music to a cartoon series by Bill Cosby, but the tunes are so strong that they merited release as an album in thier own right. Some of the more up-tempo tracks remind me of the funkier side of Aretha Franklin with their tight brass section arrangements and solid backing from the rhythm section. The slower numbers don't vie for attention as much as the other tracks but they do grow on you, and you'll soon find yourself humming those too. For the main part, though, it is funk of the highest quality.

If you've heard Herbie's "Head Hunters" and "Thrust" and loved them (or even if you liked it but were maybe slightly put off by the heavy use of synthesisers) then I'd give this a listen -the only thing electrical which he plays on this record is the Fender-Rhodes keyboard. This was the first time he recorded with the instrument, I think, but already you can hear how at home he is with it - his solo on "Wiggle-Waggle" will have dancing around like nobody's business!

The only complaint I have about this album is that it wasn't reissued sooner. Up until very recently the music was only available on a CD which brings together this and the other two recordings which Herbie made for Warner Bros between '69 and '72 ("Mwandishi" and "Crossings") but the music featured on this disc is very different from that on the other two indeed (these two are, in fact, reminiscent of Miles Davis' "Bitches Brew"), so there's a lot to be said in favour of approaching the albums individually. This one comes highly recommended.