feature photo: Darragh McDonagh
When guitar god Larry Coryell did his last swing through Ireland a few months before his 2017 death, he made a little suggestion to the drummer of the backing band for his final studio sessions: turn your acoustic jazz combo electric. With such advice coming from one of the primary architects of electric jazz fusion, how could that drummer Kevin Brady not follow it?
Thus, the The Kevin Brady Electric Quartet was born and their first album Plan B is poised to drop on October 8, 2021. In the interim, here’s an advance track from it, streaming from the video above.
If Brady is stoked about his new venture, he has every right to be. He’s got Seamus Blake on saxophone and keyboardist Bill Carrothers playing a Fender Rhodes. Dave Redmond, who did a solid job on that final Coryell disc, plays electric bass. The Kevin Brady Electric Quartet is actually an adjustment to the Kevin Brady Trio, an acoustic combo, and when Brady made the move to go electric, he added Blake to the mix. Good call.
So that first single “Airbourne” is indeed plugged in but Brady still makes it swing, and Blake is well-suited for improvising over that sort of groove. Carrothers gets into that pocket well, too, and Raymond’s got great range, often wandering up high and practically soloing alongside the Rhodes while holding it all down. Brady senses the energy and drops stimulating little bombs everywhere.
Clearly these guys are very comfortable playing together, and the immediacy and unity heard on “Airbourne” proves it.
Plan B will be offered by Ubuntu Music.
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