David Sancious: Eyes Wide Open

After leaving Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band in 1974, keyboardist and guitarist David Sancious formed the band Tone, which was centered on jazz fusion, progressive rock, and melodic overtures. At the time, he became a highly respected artist, especially due to his drawling synth tones, fiery guitar work and penetrating rhythmic outbreaks. Moving forward, he performed with Jack Bruce and Friends, Peter Gabriel, Sting, and other notables, securing his A-list session guru status. Here, the artist sings and performs instrumentals, forged with medium-tempos and tasteful dynamics.

In a nutshell, the album has a good-timey vibe as the artist covers racial musings cast with a positive spin amid the concise insertions of audio snippets culled from the news, religious leaders, and so on. Although none of these clips overtly steer the musical proceedings, but largely anchor a given storyline on select tracks. Essentially, Sancious' pleasant arrangements accentuate his talents as a sound designer via layered synth strings, catchy hooks and toe-tapping grooves. On the other hand, he doesn't let it rip either, since the bottom line is more about taste and good musical etiquette on a set that doesn't cross esoteric boundaries, yet aims to entertain with lush piano voicings, breezy vocal overlays and easy-going grooves.

Sancious dishes out a spicy funk rock with soaring choruses on the instrumental, "Flip It." Whereas, "December" commences as an atmospheric piece, tempered by his soothing acoustic guitar work, splashed with a bit of bravado, leading to the final piece "War in Heaven," which is hammered-out by all-world drummer Vinnie Colaiuta's polyrhythmic fury and the leader's curvy sax-synth sounds. Otherwise, it would be nice to hear Sancious up the ante via his somewhat legendary, smoldering synths and robust distortion-laced guitar work to notch the excitement factor up a few degrees during various segments of the presentation.