PROTOCOL

For some reason I had Simon Phillips pegged as a "session man," a classic-rock skinspounder, and one of a small number of elite, virtuoso second-string drummers who could fill in for anybody. None of that's incorrect, but it's not really a fair characterization. Most of the drummers who have inspired him are fusion players like Billy Cobham; his non-drumming influences include John McLaughlin, Miles Davis, and Jeff Beck; "and then," he says, "there are groups like Chicago, Yes, Jethro Tull etc.," which he cites as influential on his musicianship.

So Simon Phillips is a bona fide "prog" artist. And Protocol was his first album. For this project, he's joined by... nobody. Protocol is 27 minutes of very good drumming with sequenced accompaniment. On half of the tunes here, Phillips also plays an electric guitar melody on a synthesizer (via samples). Spoiler alert, it doesn't sound like Jeff Beck, but the first time I heard the album I just assumed he was jamming with some pals from the studio and never gave any thought to the idea that there might not have been a dedicated guitarist.

Overall, the first half of Protocol is relaxed, late-1980s jazz/fusion, kind of the same feel as Grover Washington Jr., Lee Ritenour or Larry Carlton in places, but more electronic, and with the focus on the drumming, not guitar or sax. I'm also reminded in places of late-1990s instrumental AOR à la Eric Johnson or Joe Satriani, although again, I'm talking about the atmosphere. However, the opener, "Streetwise," begins with a rhythmic sample that could have brought the song in the very different direction of Herbie Hancock's Future Shock. "Streetwise" is probably the catchiest tune here, although the chorus melody on the second cut, "Red Rocks," has a nice, jazzy, unexpected chord change.

But compositionally, a sameness settles in even before "Red Rocks" ends. Listening to the following songs ("Protocol" and "Slofunk"), I get the sense that the primary reason the record company released Protocol as a mini-album was that there just wasn't another ten or fifteen minutes of ideas, at least at the moment. The fifth and final conventional song, "V8," is a bit more energetic, and here the drumming is more complex.

The original issue of Protocol ends with "Wall St.," a four-minute drum solo recorded live in 1988, although on the reissue it's labeled "Wall St. part 1" and accompanied by parts 2 and 3, extending the piece to thirteen minutes of pretty amazing musicianship. It bears a little resemblance to Neil Peart's solo on All the World's a Stage. Since the tom-toms are the only tuned percussion Phillips uses, it's remarkable that "Wall St." Doesn't get boring much sooner. I'm someone who can appreciate "The Drum Also Waltzes," but I have my limit when it come to drum solos, and it's way before thirteen minutes!

If anyone needed proof in 1988, twelve years after 801 Live, of the talents of Simon Phillips as a consummate musician - - not just a as timekeeper - - Protocol was it. But as a late-1980s work of rock-based fusion, Protocol doesn't represent progress beyond late-1970s rock-based fusion like Romantic Warrior or Feels Good to Me. Given Phillips's influences, such progress might've been expected. But evidently Protocol was more of a drumming showcase than of jazz composition. In later years, Phillips would recruit musicians to take the Protocol concept in much more artistic directions.

P.S.: The reissue of Protocol also includes alternate mixes of "Streetwise" and "Protocol."