Night In The City (Live)

Album review

Looking over Robben Ford's vast credits list, his astonishing range becomes clear without hearing a note. Over five decades, he's played on hundreds of recordings by everyone from Charlie Musselwhite, Miles Davis, and Bob Dylan to the Yellowjackets, Jennifer Warnes, and Keiko Matsui. Ford's remarkably consistent solo career began with 1976's Schizophonic, and includes important albums such as 1988's Talk To Your Daughter, 1992's Mystic Mile, 1997's Tiger Walk, 2002's Blue Moon, and 2018's Purple House.
Night In The City was recorded at Nashville's City Winery in 2021. It marked his return to live playing after the COVID-19 pandemic. Backed by his working quintet -- bassist Anton Nesbitt, drummer Nate Smith, saxophonist/bass clarinetist Jeff Coffin, and saxophonist Jovan Quallo -- Ford runs through (primarily instrumental) material from his catalogue, focusing primarily on 2021's Pure, with a couple of vocal tunes and unreleased jams woven in.
Three of the set's first four jams originally appeared on Pure. Opener "Go" offers this band's unique take on contemporary jazz-funk. With a punchy guitar vamp, a syncopated groove emerges atop Ford's comping guitar. He dialogues with the sax players before undertaking a knotty solo. It's followed by the scorching "Blues for Lonnie Johnson." The horns follows the rhythm section, in strolling the changes while Ford delivers a 21st century take on Chicago-style blues, alternating between blinding single string runs and vast, poignant chord voicings that nearly sing. "Cotton Candy," a vocal track, originally appeared on Purple House. Framed by sparse, jazzy, backbeat funk, Ford rises above the saxes witrh the sultry lyric before digging in instrumentally with a tasty solo sans any extra notes. Instrumental "Balafon" (also from Pure) is a spacey, mid tempo rocker with a funky backbeat undergirding slippery, accessible, bluesy postbop. The interplay between saxophonists and guitarist is deeply conversational. Also included are a pair of unreleased tracks. "Anto'Nate'N'Tate," commences as a jazz-blues before Ford's winding, dialogic interlude with the saxophonists transfrtoms itself into contempoary jazz fusion, even as the rhythm section maintains a circular, bluesy R&B. "Just Another Country Road" originally appeared on 2014's A Day in Nashville. It's a polished electric blues with a sweet vocal from Ford, who laments the state of modern life; it includes fine soloing from the saxists before Ford takes a deep dive into blues history with his solo. Closer "At The Apollo," a nearly nine minute instrumental, deliberately evokes memories of the artists who performed there: One readily hears thius band's evocation of James Brown & His Famous Flames with jagged, minimalist funk vamps, the Isaac Hayes Movement's presentation of progressive jazzy soul, the honking sax blues of Gene Ammons, and 21st century jazz guitar improvisation. Night in the City is as tight as any of Ford's studio efforts. The band's propulsive, swinging, incessant grooves are the result of familiarity as they play together often, but more, they sound inspired by one another, the audience and the music itself.

© Thom, Jurek /TiVo