LOVE, LOVE

Fans of Herbie Hancock Sextet's cult favorite, 'Crossings', will probably find a lot to like in Sextet trombonist Julian Priester's 'Love Love'. All the familiar ingredients are here, futuristic analog synths, sinewy washes of string Melotron, heavily reverbed avant jazz solos, ecloplexed everything and African influenced poly-rhythms. To Priester's favor he has one thing that Herbie didn't have, the searing guitar work of Bill Connor. Unfortunately, what Julian is lacking in comparism to Hancock's classic though is the amazing psychedelic production of David Rubison, as well as Herbie's slightly better developed compositions. This is not to say Priester can't compose and arrange with the best of them, but we are comparing him to one of the top jazz composers of the second half of the 20th century.

Side one starts with beautiful subtle orchestrations with horns blending with Pat Gleeson's electronics, then the band breaks into a steady odd-metered groove while the horns, synths, guitars and Melotrons all have their chance to snake by and have their say. All this is nice and groovy in an early 70s psychedelic way, and it does have a very nice retro sound to it, but after awhile it does go on a bit long. Also, typical on this album is less than top- notch mixing from Gleeson and Priester, who are not pro mixers and it shows. The problem manifests itself on this side with a loud persistent hi-hat that could have been placed a bit lower in volume.

Side two is a little more adventurous and energetic as the band opens by alternating avant rushes of drum driven heavily echoed solos, with quiet mysterious orchestrated electronics/acoustic horns passages. The music and playing is top notch, but once again Gleeson and Priester undermine themselves by putting the synthesizers to high in the mix, and giving the drums a very muddy sound that makes most of the set disappear except the cymbals. Halfway through the second side (song titles seem to mean nothing on this album) the band brings it all together with this charging rhythm that's part Afro-Cuban and part galloping psychedelic space rock. Everone piles on with intertwining solos and for once the production is dead-on as Gleeson's synth colors blend perfectly with the horn players relentless solos.

If this album had been mixed and produced by professionals it would have been a 'masterpiece', all the same, it is still very good and is highly recommended for fans of the Herbie Hancock Sextet.

4.5 stars. Julian Priester played trombone with Bo Diddley and Muddy Waters while still a teenager. He's also played with John Coltrane and Duke Ellington and other greats. His stint with Herbie Hancock (part of the Mwandishi lineup) is really the closest connection to this particular album. He recorded "Love, Love" in 1973 not long after he left Herbie's band. Pat Gleeson well known for his work with Herbie plays synths on this one as well as helping Julian to mix and produce it. Julian certainly does more than play the trombone here, he plays a variety of synths and horns, as well as percussion, and of course he composed these two side long suites. Oh, I forgot to mention that guitar ace Bill Connors plays on one track. Lots of other guests as well.

"Prologue / Love, Love" opens with what sounds like sliegh bells as piano comes in with other sounds. Not melodic here at all. Bass, drums and piano take over before 2 minutes and really they form the base of what we'll hear the rest of the way. A repetitive rhythm that sounds really good. We get synths, horns and other instruments coming and going throughout. Connors arrives after 9 minutes. There's even string-synths before 19 minutes. Excellent tune that Hancock fans would enjoy i'm sure.

"Images / Eternal Worlds / Epilogue" like the first track has no real melody to begin with. This time it's synths, drums and other sounds dominating until before 2 minutes. A change 2 1/2 minutes in as horns become prominant. Some dissonance after 6 minutes. A change after 8 minutes as piano and cymbals lead. Horns come in too. Piano leads before 11 minutes.The horns are crying out before 13 minutes. Piano ends it.

The first track is sort of repetitive and catchy while the second is more difficult and more of a challenge. A cool album and I like the cover too.

If you like Herbie Hancock's album Sextant, then you will most likely enjoy this as well. Julian Priester was a member of Hancock's Mwandishi line-up as well as having his own history in Jazz. Like the Mwandishi albums the music here is spacey, electric jazz. This type of music is sometimes referred to as "kosmigroove." Love, Love is slightly more traditional jazz than the Mwandishi albums. Priester's main instrument is trombone but here he also plays percussion and synthesizers. The only other Mwandishi member to appear here is Dr. Patrick Gleeson, who not only supplies the Moog and ARP synths he used on Crossings and Sextant, but a Oberheim digital sequencer which must have been straight off the assembly line.

I listened to the vinyl version of this album which has three tracks; the CD version has the last two songs as one track. To me, it seems like the middle song "Images" should be seperate from the last song. The title track features then Return To Forever guitarist Bill Connors, which is a great addition since there was no guitar on the Mwandishi albums. "Prologue / Love, Love" is similar to "Hornets" on Sextant. It starts with some orchestral jazz. The majority of this track is built around the funky odd-metered bassline. The drumming is great, repetative in a Can fashion. Basically a bunch of solos on modified wind instruments over a groove...but what an awesome groove it is.

Spacey effects on synths and whatnot come and go. Almost halfway you start hearing Mellotron strings which disappear and reappear throughout the remainder of the piece. Percussion becomes more noticeable over halfway. Towards the end the bass starts leaving more pauses and some fuzz gets applied to it. The music slowly dies out and ends. Compared to the last track, "Images" is more trad jazzy. Starts off with some free-form avant- jazz. Later more orchestral jazz. Then gets more spacey. Slowly the piece gets more dissonant. After 6 minutes the bass lays down a groove for the wind players to do avant solos over. The drums, meanwhile, are a little more varied. Lots of cacophony at the end.

"Eternal Words / Epilogue" ends the album on a very jazzy note. Certainly the least avant or rock sounding track. This begins with something wah-wahed and very jazzy piano and hi-hat. The beginning almost reminds me of pre-MDK Magma. Ends with more orchestral jazz. The first song is the best and the closest to the "kosmigroove" style. Unfortunately, Julian never made any more albums like this. I assume he is only on this site because of this album. But it's a great album. No Sextant, but close. 4 stars.

Over a decade after his last solo album, Julian Priester staked out his own territory in the realms of jazz fusion with this esoteric set under his Pepo Mtoto alter ego - a guise he had first adopted in Herbie Hancock's Mwandishi-era band, which had just been dissolved after the completion of Sextant. Although, as in the Mwandishi recordings, Priester and many of his contributors take on Swahili names, I am more reminded of the darker, murkier portions of Miles Davis' Bitches Brew with extensive synthesiser arrangements added, taking the music into deep, spacey realms reminiscent of the work of Priester's former band leader Sun Ra. Priester had clearly learned a lot during the Mwandishi sessions and his prior work in Sun Ra's Arkestra, and uses it all to good effect here.

Known more as Herbie Hancock's trombonist during the Mwandishi-era sex- and septets, this was Julian's first release after the formal disbanding of Herbe's Septet--here released and recorded under Manfred Eicher's new ECM label, as was fellow-Mwandishi band mate Bennie Maupin's solo release of the same year, The Jewel in The Lotus. While Maupin used four of the Septet to help record his own album, Julian almost accomplished this album as a one-man solo project, playing the roles of Bass Trombone, Tenor Trombone, Trombone [Alto], Baritone Horn, Horn [Post], Flute, Cowbell, Percussion [Small], Synthesizer [Arp 2600, Prototype Arp String Synthesizer], Producer, Mixer, and Composer on all songs with only synthesizer expert Patrick Gleeson (the seventh and final addition to Herbie's Septet) and drummer Ndugu Leon Chancler from his former band.

Working under his alter ego name he used when exploring particularly "cosmic" themes: "Pepe Mtoto," here "Pepe" is definitely exploring the "cosmic music" that he found himself attracted to in the 1960s while working with Sun Ra and his Archestra but here using many new electronic devices and instruments that Pat Gleeson and the Mwandishi sessions exposed him to.

1. "Prologue/Love, Love" (19:30) an extremely engaging groove with some very Deodato-like keyboard and bass play providing the spine of the entire side long song, the overall feel does have more of a long-play Krautrock feel despite the business of the contributing musicians (particularly Cochran and Connors but also bassist McClure). The drums, percussion, and bass are incredibly solid and steady throughout, which offers the soloists very fecund ground on which to perform their psychedelic gymnastics. It feels as if all of the soloists were given plenty of room and encouragement to experiment and "go off"--even during the live recording. As a result, this is a great, eminently enjoyable, and also hypnotic song. (37/40)

2. "Images/Eternal Worlds/Epilogue" (18:24) a song that seems founded far more in more-traditional form and structure despite the rogue bass playing of Henry Franklin. In the third minute , drummer Chancler and electric pianist Todd Cochran seem to fall back into Deodato-like mode, yet are free enough to expand upon their foundational forms to express themselves with admirable abandon. Gleeson and Priester also seem to be having a creative free-for-all. Even the sax player in gets into the act in the sixth and seventh minutes. This is some cosmic ride: entropy rules! Thus it is quite unexpected when the whole band suddenly shifts in the eighth minute into a sudden shift into a low-piano chord and cymbal-guided "Love Supreme"-like motif, congealing over the next two minutes into such tightly- engaged and focused unit that their gradual, almost imperceptible transition into what feels like a high-speed Latin rumba line by the eleventh minute made me wonder (more that once) if I was still listening to the same album--or even the same band! These are obviously very serious and very skilled jazz musicians. Pianist Todd Cochran is especially impressive but so is everyone else. They are so tight! So skilled! So professional! After the first rather psychedelic song of hypnotic space funk and the chaotic opening seven minutes of this, I would never in a million years have predicted this amazingly sophisticated "big band" jazz! I love this song--immediately wanted to play it again and then left it on repeat for the whole morning! Wow! (39/40)

A/five stars; an amazingly fresh expression of the relatively new Jazz-Rock Fusion idiom: containing free-form experimentation over super-solid rhythm play, spanning the spectrum from the spacey-psychedelic to the most professional big band sound. One of the finest J-R Fuse albums of its time (with great sound thanks to Manfred Eicher and his ECM label); definitely in my Top 10 Jazz-Rock Fusion Albums of prog's "Classic Era."