ORGANISSIMO GROOVADEPHIA Big O Records
Organissimo, a bi-product of a vibrant blue collar midwestern funk tradition, pays a post-modern tribute to the great Philadelphia Hammond B-3 stylists, Jimmy Smith, Shirley Scott and Charles Earland - hence a very large and fascinating, “Groovadelphia.” It's not in the notes on the release, it's there in spirit.
Jim Alfredson is the leader, Hammond B-3 player and recording engineer, as important as a 'Rudy Van Gelder' of this band, for Jim is behind the console, adjusting levels, setting the tone for organissimo.
The title tune tells the story of a funk modern Booker T with, in this case, the real Joe Gloss on guitar.
Organist Jim Alfredson met guitarist Joe Gloss at Michigan State in Lansing and got it musically, fronted various bands, then met drummer Randy Marsh to form organissimo and played various clubs on campuses in South Bend, Ann Arbor and East Lansing.
Think of those fall crisp football weekends while listening to “Third Right On The Left.” Alfredson's Hammond hums in glorious apocrypha. Then the message in another time zone, “Traces,” coerces a more mellow wave length. “Danco De Alma” is full of bright melodic dance excursions with Joe Gloss nuance and Rhodes, motif, rack, mood and moog.
If you're a fighting Irish, victorious and over forty in South Bend with organissimo on stage, you'd ask your wife and partner to dance too. It's a celebration as in organissimo!
“If Not Now, When?” is a groovy if not existential, then how? The music is straight ahead, “ Let's have a Coney.”
“Bleecker” is a mellow, cordon blue with Alfredson and Gloss getting it on-to the extreme post modern funk, a new world shadow of a former self.
“My Sweet Potato Pie” is new funk with Gospel leanings, in search of a joyful higher identity, with a Joe Gloss, 'Grant Green' happy ending and Randy Marsh signifying distant harmonica entrails.
And the last is a solo Jim Alfredson on Rhodes with a play on words, “Rhodesia,” a nice refrain from a provocative engineer-musician.
Dick Crockett
"The Voice" 88.7FM
Sacramento, CA