CD Review: http://www.amazon.com/Its-About-Time-Jacob-Melchior/dp/B0041ON4YK/ref=cm_cr-mr-title
Jacob Melchior is a drummer, and bandleader, and an arranger and composer and in this very intimate and classy recording IT’S ABOUT TIME he makes his point of the title -the drummer does not only keep the time of a piece in motion, but he can also be a very successful soloist. The group assembled here is a fine one – Melchior on drums and percussion, Tadataka Unno, piano, and Fassan JJ Shakur, bass – and they have a tight communication that is the necessary ingredient for the expository riffs and solos they each take. It is a well oiled-machine, this trio. Favorites for this listener are the infectiously Brazilian ‘Brigas nunca mais’, ‘The Lady of my Life’ (a terrific bass solo by Shakur), the opening ‘Dancing Foo/Squatty Roo’ and ‘Lover/Gerry’s Wig’.
A sure sign of security of a group of musicians is the invitation of an ‘outsider’ to join them on a recording session. And that is the gift to the listener of this CD that happens here: the very soulful Frank Senior, a blind vocalist from Harlem, who pleads the case for the Coots song ‘For All We Know’. Given that Senior knows his away around this melody, these lyrics, it is the back up form the group that makes this such a stand out performance. The entire CD is like that though – nine tracks of irrepressibly fine, smart, from the mind/gut jazz. This is one terrific album. Grady Harp
Reviewed By Grady Harp