Music Banter - View Single Post - Anteater's Muzak 101: Legitimizing Smooth Jazz For The Unwashed Masses

Anteater · 07-19-2012, 10:45 AM

The Rippingtons - Tourist In Paradise (1989)

ARTIST BACKGROUND
Perhaps the single best contemporary jazz act on the planet to emerge since the genre's inception back in the early 80's, The Rippingtons are a band led by Californian guitar virtuoso Russ Freeman, accompanied over the years by a fairly diverse and talented lineup of people, including drummer Tony Morales and bassist Kim Stone (formally of Spyro Gyra). The group is known for their lush productions, great live shows and a tendency to be a good deal edgier and atmospheric than the majority of their colleague bands.

THE ALBUM
Their third album chronologically. Tourist In Paradise is perhaps the best smooth jazz record of the late 80's and an apex in the band's career overall. While the band's previous '87 release, Kilimanjaro, solidified the band's sound into something distinct and surprisingly eclectic, it was this record where they began to up the ante and wade deeper into World music territory.

WHY YOU WANT THIS
So why do you want this? Partly, I'd say, because there's a surprising amount of depth behind the instrumentation than the norm, resulting in a couple of stone cold classic numbers and a couple of others that aren't too shabby either. On top of that, Steve Reid's keyboard soundscapes are a rather unique feature to the overall band dynamic present in this record, and they turn songs like the title track from something that might have been merely pleasant into something representative of an entire style.

Other elevating factors include some steller instrumental interaction between the players, as they're as tight as any fusion act, and Russ's classical picking on tracks like 'A Summer Night In Brazil' is beautiful even when he isn't 'ripping' into some of the higher energy cuts like 'Eartbound' or weaving in and around the pulsating synths of 'Destiny'.

CLOSING REMARKS
To put things in perspective, The Rippingtons are to contemporary jazz what Led Zeppelin are to hard rock or what Talk Talk are to early post-rock: really great bands who cut record after record of killer material that, in retrospect, stand at the top of the pile of whatever sonic aesthetic they call home.

If you want to learn to like contemporary jazz or have even a passing curiosity in bands that go further than you'd expect, The Ripps are as good as place to start as any I can think of...and that's a helluva endorsement.

FINAL GRADE