This post is by Scott
Recorded in 1982
When you make a trio album, there's nowhere to hide. Every musical strand is in bold relief. But that's no problem for the trio Odean Pope assembled for Almost Like Me.
Listening to this music, two things immediately stand out. First, Odean Pope is a tremendous saxophonist with a bold, appealing, and powerful sound. Second, this band's rhythm section is on fire! Gerald Veasley and Cornell Rochester fill out the music, making it sound as if an entire orchestra is backing Pope. In fact, Veasley's electric bass may as well be an electric guitar, given the prominence his instrument has in the mix. It's uncanny how all three instrumentalists move seamlessly between supporting roles and lead voice. Listeners who prefer bassists to stick to a more traditional, supporting role should look elsewhere. Veasley is out front-and-center on Almost Like Me, and I think he sounds fantastic.
It's interesting to note that around this same time, Sam Rivers was moving in similar directions, incorporating electric guitars and basses into his music (while simultaneously remaining steadfastly clear of fusion, the sub-genre most often associated with electrified instruments). An album that exemplifies this trend is Rivers' "Crosscurrent": Live at Jazz Unité (Blue Marge, 1982) with electric bass guitarist Rael Wesley Grant and electric guitarist Jerry Byrd. Veasley, Rael, Byrd, and others like them were harnessing electricity to make new sounds, not just amplify it. Players like James "Blood" Ulmer, Jamaaladeen Tacuma, Lonnie Plaxico, and many others were approaching their instruments -- and the music -- from new and interesting sonic angles. It was a definite thing in the 80s. ... Of course, 1970s funk was part of the equation, but I presume that many of these players and bandleaders were also influenced (more or less) by Ornette Coleman's Prime Time bands of the 1970s, in which electric guitarists and bassists played a prominent role.
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