Album review: BOB HOLZ – Holz-Stathis Collaborative

MVD Audio [Release date 08.09.23]

This album, by veteran drummer Bob Holz, takes me back to the mid-late 1970s when there was a profusion of fusion. In the form of Return To Forever, Mahavishnu Orchestra and less prominent bands like the talented Italians Nova. And not forgetting Billy Cobham’s ‘Spectrum’ marshalled by the rock pyrotechnics of Tommy Bolin on the iconic ‘Quadrant 4′.

Holz has assembled many luminaries from this earlier and formative era such as bassist Ralphe Armstrong and even John McLaughlin plus the likes of Jean Luc Ponty and Randy Brecker.

It’s not all instrumental and following the spritely opener ‘The Tunnel’ there is the bossa nova beat of ‘Island Sun Love’ voiced by Diana Moreira, daughter of renowned percussionist Airto Moreira. It’s the sort of thing that Ramsey Lewis was doing in the late-seventies, and another point of reference.

‘World Turned Upside Down’ has the heavyweight Mahavishnu contribution including Jean Luc Ponty on violin. To be truthful it is the least appealing track on the album, a bit leaden, but I suppose it’s good to have McLaughlin on your album. Especially when he’s 81! Get in!

The pace and the atmosphere lifts with ‘Side Scratch’ a funky workout with Billy Steinway’s Hammond jostling with Dean Brown’s guitar and Brecker’s trumpet to great effect.

Brandon Fields, another jazz fusion heavyweight, leads ‘Volta’ with typically impressive piano from Steinway who has with Holz co-written most of the songs included here. Bass duties throughout are mainly from Rolling Stones acolyte Darryl Jones.

Strangely there’s no flute credit for ‘Palo Viejo’ (or the Acoustic Alchemy-ish ‘Wondering’), I assume it could be Brandon Fields but – whoever – it lends an airy feel to Latin beats whilst ‘Back To You’ features Elliott Yamin (American Idol) on lead vocal and support from co-producer Rob Stathis.

Brecker adds his commanding trumpet again to ‘You Can Get It’ another funky workout penned by guitarist Brown who has worked with any number of the genre’s finest (including Marcus Miller, George Duke and Bob James).

‘Better Try’ comes straight out of the school of Sanborn with its superbly lyrical approach whilst ‘Flight Of Fancy’ features guitar from Jamie Glaser who so impressed me in 1978 contributing to the Lenny White album ‘Streamline’.

The essentially brass-led approach deployed on the album culminates in a cover of Chicago’s ‘Make Me Smile’ which is possibly the weakest link. These covers either work or they don’t and this doesn’t really add either to the original or the album in general. It did remind me, though, that back in the day I bought the original single.

‘Holz-Stathis: Collaborative’ will revive all those guilty pleasures, whether late 70s jazz funk or late-1990s smooth jazz. Nice. ****

Review by David Randall

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