74 DOWNBEAT DECEMBER 2016

Steve GaddWay Back HomeBFM JAZZ

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If you were to place every album drummer Steve Gadd appeared on end-to-end, you would traverse at least one football field before you got to the end of the 1980s. From Van McCoy’s “The Hustle” to Charles Mingus, George Benson to Paul Simon’s “50 Ways To Leave Your Lover,” Gadd has covered more ground than almost any drummer on Earth.

He’s versatile but unobtrusive, a groove master who provides the essentials. On this instrumental album—recorded live in Rochester, New York, to celebrate his 70th birthday (his second album to celebrate the milestone)—Gadd unsurprisingly continues that tradition.

Keyboardist Larry Goldings gets a lot of room to shine, kicking off the solos on “Green Foam” with a funky sprint across the Hammond B-3, while his own composition “Cavaliero” is a patient and predatory bole-ro, creeping on Gadd’s steady snare drum. Guitarist Michael Landau adds a greasy crawl to the former, bending high and tight before implying a little slack-key styling to the latter.

The band is happy to show off their versa-tility, lightly jumping through genres from tune to tune. The oscillating “Desu” leaves plenty of space for Landau to catch fireflies, with Goldings and Johnson laying back. And the band closes with a drummer tune: Buddy Miles’ “Them Changes.” The band grooves hard, making the most of each spotlight, and Gadd takes a solo that is both precise and play-ful. This is a birthday party, after all, and the proceedings go down like a slice of cake—fun, a little sweet and a nice finish to richer and more complex fare.

—Sean J. O’Connell Way Back Home: Green Foam; Cavaliero; Africa; Way Back

Home; Bye Bye Blackbird; Desu; Oh, Yeah!; Them Changes. (67:46)Personnel: Steve Gadd, drums; Michael Landau, guitar; Walt Fowler, trumpet; Larry Goldings, organ, Fender Rhodes; Jimmy Johnson, bass.

Ordering info: bfmjazz.com

Etienne Mbappe & The Prophets How Near How Far ABSTRACT LOGIX 055

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Add Etienne Mbappe to the cadre of Cameroon-born musicians—including saxophonist Manu Dibango and bassist Richard Bona—that brings lyrical fluidity to intricate, grooving jazz. An electric bassist and composer-arranger based in France, Mbappe was Salif Keita’s musi-cal director, and has toured with keyboardist Joe Zawinul’s Syndicate and the fusion group Steps Ahead. It’s easy to make the case that he

Till BrönnerThe Good LifeOKEH/MASTERWORKS 88875187202

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Like fellow trumpeter-vocalist Bria Skonberg, who just made her major label debut for the same recording company, German-born Till Brönner is firmly grounded in music that has few champions under the age of 70. His takes on decades-old songs like “Sweet Lorraine,” “I’m Confessin’ That I Love You” and “For All We Know” are free from either irony or mod-ern convention; his delivery is as unman-nered and sincere as if the songs had just been written.

Despite his sincerity and craft, your level of enjoyment will depend on how devoted you are to the dreamy, wounded love ballads of Chet Baker—Brönner’s most-obvious influ-ence. Like Baker, the 45-year-old Brönner has a feather-soft voice with no grit or edge. Despite its bloodless timbre, it’s a pleasant instrument that stays in tune, and Brönner uses inflection to significant advantage.

Refreshingly, he manages to bring some-thing new to “I Loves You, Porgy,” which is almost impossible for a trumpeter to deliv-er without making reference to Miles Davis. Elsewhere, as on the title song and “I’ll Be Seeing You,” Brönner’s trumpet playing stays

deserves a larger audience, and he can gain one with How Near How Far, his fourth album as a leader but first on a U.S. label.

With his ensemble arranged and glossily produced to sound larger than it is, Mbappe updates the flashy hooks and punctuations of Jaco-era Weather Report and the violin-inflect-ed front line of the Mahavishnu Orchestra to craft complexly plotted, multi-layered tracks. He’s compelling during his occasional breaks and sets strict guidelines for dazzling tutti stop-time passages, as on “Bandit Queen.”

Mbappe locks into funk rhythms with guitar-ist Anthony Jambon and drummer Nicolas Viccaro on “Make It Easy,” which turns on a dime into a North African/Middle Eastern motif. Each sideman acquits himself admirably, but the Prophet’s strength is its celebratory united front—even when trumpeter Arno De Casanove, tenor saxophonist Herve Gourdikian and pianist Christophe Cravero work against each other. Each of the bassist’s songs contains multiple dimen-sions; he holds them all together, without obvious effort, but firmly. —Howard Mandel

How Near How Far: John Ji; Bandit Queen; Lagos Market; How Near How Far; Make It Easy; Milonga In 7 (To Astor Piazzola); Bad As I’m Doing; Mang Lady; Assiko Twerk; Day Message (To Joe Zawinul); Musango Na Wa. (58:04)Personnel: Etienne Mbappe, bass, vocal (11); Arno De Casanove, trumpet, flugelhorn; Herve Gourdikian, tenor saxophone; Christo-phe Cravero, piano; Clement Janinet, violin; Nicolas Viccaro, drums, bottle percussion; Anthony Jambon, guitar.

Ordering info: abstractlogix.com

largely in service of the original melodies, leav-ing the bulk of the improvisational work to pia-nist Larry Goldings.

Far from an exercise in nostalgia, The Good Life sounds like a love letter from Brönner to this material, as well as to those who continue to appreciate delicate, literate songs of romance from another era. —James Hale

The Good Life: The Good Life; Sweet Lorraine; For All We Know; Come Dance With Me; Change Partners; Love Is Here To Stay; I Loves You, Porgy; I May Be Wrong; O Que Resta; I’m Confessin’ That I Love You; I’ll Be Seeing You; Her Smile; In The Wee Small Hours Of The Morning. (60:03)Personnel: Till Brönner, trumpet, flugelhorn, vocals; Anthony Wilson, guitar; Larry Goldings, piano; John Clayton, bass; Jeff Hamilton, drums.

Ordering info: okeh-records.com