Home » Jazz Articles » Album Review » Robert Musso: Innermedium

169

Robert Musso: Innermedium

By

View read count
Robert Musso: Innermedium
Retro-jazz for a forty-something listener is not Miles Davis’ Kind Of Blue or John Coltrane’s My Favorite Things both of which were recorded forty years ago. No, our jazz roots are fusion. Rock and Roll nurtured babies dug Jimi Hendrix before Jon Hendricks. We came to jazz through electric jazz and fusion. Bitches Brew (1969) was in our record collection before Milestones (1958). Ellington was passed over for Jaco Pastorious. Twenty years ago, fusion was condemned by jazz purists and simultaneously co-opted by the smooth jazz scene, leaving listeners of progressive jazz to deny the dark days of electricity. Only recently has electric jazz and fusion been resurrected and dealt with outside of the smooth arena with artist like Medeski, Martin & Wood, Bill Laswell, and John McLaughlin.

For jazz-fusion fans to come out of the closet it is going to take more releases like this one from Robert Musso. The guitarist, music engineer, and label owner (MuWorks) creates a new old-sound, reminiscent of that seventies scene. With Bill Laswell applying the bottom, I was transported to memories of Jean-Luc Ponty, Weather Report, and Roy Ayers. Bernie Worrell’s organ and electric piano support smart quick solos by Dave Liebman and Byard Lancaster. Dipping into Herbie Hancock’s bag and that of Joe Zawinul and Wayne Shorter, Musso has created a time capsule or perhaps a time machine, to the mid-seventies when all this was fresh and had infinite possibilities.

Track List:Unknown Passage; Luminous; Stream Of Stars; Realm Of Spells; Drifting Shades; One Mind; Dark Halo; From Shadows; Silent Code.

Personnel

Karl Berger

Album information

Title: Innermedium | Year Released: 2000 | Record Label: DIW

Tags

Comments


PREVIOUS / NEXT




Support All About Jazz

Get the Jazz Near You newsletter All About Jazz has been a pillar of jazz since 1995, championing it as an art form and, more importantly, supporting the musicians who make it. Our enduring commitment has made "AAJ" one of the most culturally important websites of its kind, read by hundreds of thousands of fans, musicians and industry figures every month.

Go Ad Free!

To maintain our platform while developing new means to foster jazz discovery and connectivity, we need your help. You can become a sustaining member for as little as $20 and in return, we'll immediately hide those pesky ads plus provide access to future articles for a full year. This winning combination vastly improves your AAJ experience and allow us to vigorously build on the pioneering work we first started in 1995. So enjoy an ad-free AAJ experience and help us remain a positive beacon for jazz by making a donation today.

More

Eternal Moments
Yoko Yates
From "The Hellhole"
Marshall Crenshaw
Tramonto
John Taylor

Popular

Old Home/New Home
The Brian Martin Big Band
My Ideal
Sam Dillon
Ecliptic
Shifa شفاء - Rachel Musson, Pat Thomas, Mark Sanders
Lado B Brazilian Project 2
Catina DeLuna & Otmaro Ruíz

Get more of a good thing!

Our weekly newsletter highlights our top stories, our special offers, and upcoming jazz events near you.

Install All About Jazz

iOS Instructions:

To install this app, follow these steps:

All About Jazz would like to send you notifications

Notifications include timely alerts to content of interest, such as articles, reviews, new features, and more. These can be configured in Settings.