Ron Blake "Lest We Forget"

[clifton]

Ron Blake's "Lest We Forget" is an excellent tribute to Stanley Turrentine, Charles Earland, and Grover Washington, Jr. Very little that's retro here. Blake has a huge tone with a warm vibrato and he really knows how to build a solo. Plus Joey DeFrancesco really kicks butt, he's the greatest organist since Larry Young, IMHO. The album also features David Gilmore on guitar, Greg Hutchinson on drums, Christian McBride on bass for a few tunes, including a terrific duet with Blake on "You Must Believe In Spring". Plus a promising newcomer on trumpet named Rashawn Ross. "Lest We Forget" has a couple of cool funk tunes, and most of it steams straight ahead. I just submitted a review of this one to AAJ if you want more detail, but this one is definitely worth it.

[Jim Alfredson]

Ron's a bad dude. I'm sure you know he's on our record, kickin' some butt as well.

Joey the greatest organist since Larry Young? I'll have to think about that one.

[clifton]

Some stuff on how I came to my opinion re DeFrancesco. I liked his work during his Young Lion days, and I even bought "Joey 3". He was still very much in thrall to Jimmy Smith then, but his fire and swing made him sound very promising. Then I heard him as a sideman with John McLaughlin on "Free Spirits Live In Tokyo" and "After The Rain",and suddenly, the Smith acolyte was gone, replaced by a daring soloist, one with the same fire, but now he's taking harmonic and rhythmic chances that just aren't part of the Jimmy Smith idiom. The same sense of exploration is evident in his work on Pat Martino's "Live At Yoshi's" and on "Lest We Forget". Plus on "Goodfellas" and some other recent work, you can hear it. There are some great organists out there: Yahel, Dennerlein, Goldings, McGriff, and of course, Mr. Smith himself, but I gotta give it up for the kid from Ridley Park.

[Jim Alfredson]

I think he is definately the greatest organist of the younger generation. My qualm is comparing him to Larry Young. To me he does not have the exploratory nature of Young. For one thing, he rarely writes his own tunes. For another, his concept is still firmly rooted in Jimmy Smith.

Nothing wrong with any of that at all. And I suppose if you consider Young the last of the 60's generation of organists, I guess you're right. But I originally read it as comparing DeFrancesco to Young which is not a fair comparison, imo.

[Tom in RI]

Clifton, thanks for the review. I saw Ron Blake with Roy Haynes 3-4 years ago and he was very good. I look fro wardto picking this up.