CD Review

Have you ever noticed that the conception of the future you had years ago is never the future you find yourself in? Consider the TV show the Jetsons or the original Star Trek series. It’s an interesting phenomenon. In the seventies, futuristic meant body paint and shiny spandex - I think people assumed no one would be fat in the future. Boy do I wish that much came true. It was generally assumed that the doors on Star Ships would just know you were there and slide open for you. Novels that were so ground breaking, like Huxley’s "A Brave New World" seem quaint and antique when viewed from our contemporary perspective.

This is the strange world inhabited by acid jazz. In the seventies, when Herbie Hancock ventured into the uncharted territory of disco funky jazz, it must have seemed incredibly new and modern. This was jazz punctuated by funky organs and thick bassy grooves, but still uniquely jazzy. It was full of tight improvisation and all kinds of swing. Ron Levy’s Wild Kingdom is acid jazz at its best: the future of jazz in the seventies, now gone the way of the platform shoe and the plastic leather jacket.

Thankfully the jam scene has provided a new venue for the resurgence of this interesting style of music, and we’re lucky to have it back. Ron Levy’s Wild Kingdom is on the cutting edge of 1970, and Voodoo Boogaloo is a triumph of the acid style of jazz that Herbie Hancock gave up on years ago. Everyone that plays here is a real craftsman, but some are standouts. Melvin Sparks, “Sax” Gordon and Karl Denson are absolutely virtuoso performers. It’s like listening to Mozart play the harpsichord. Ron Levy provides a fine platform for this soul filled style. The songs feel both modern and retro-cool, and they really swing and groove.

My favorite song is the title track. I’m a sucker for the flute as an improvisational instrument (please keep your Anchorman jokes to yourself) and Karl Denson just cooks on it. It digs into my soul and cuts right to the bone. If you listen to this album for the first time in the car watch out. “Spy on the Fly” can be a bit startling; I’ll leave it at that. All of the tracks on Voodoo Boogaloo are solid, and none are cut off too early, the shortest is still over four minutes.

Consider that today we are thirty-five years in the future of 1970. In many cases we have the technology we had once only dreamed of, yet we employ it in such strange and different ways. We have tread mills but we don’t walk our dogs on them. We have platform shoes and we choose to place them on strippers. Sliding doors are for supermarkets, not star ships. Perhaps even stranger: we have great musicians making this amazing funky music and it has found a home in the young jam band scene. Thank you Ron Levy. This stuff makes for great groove.

For more info see levtron.com