Guitarist
Mel Brown
is hailed as "An
Impulse!
Discovery" on
Chicken Fat
, his debut for the label, and this album does feature a fantastic unique sound.
Brown
played in the bands of
T-Bone Walker
and
John Lee Hooker
, and has an aggressive (though not harsh) single-string picking style. For this date he is paired with either
Herb Ellis
or
Arthur Wright
on guitar,
Gerald Wiggins
on organ, and
's regular rhythm section of
Paul Humphrey
on drums and
Ronald Brown
on electric bass. There are a couple tracks that are played as pretty straight
blues
, but this is a hoppin'
soul-jazz
date. The tunes are bouncy and funky, and
's playing is a real treat. His bluesy, almost reckless soloing gives a vastly different flavor that the playing of guys like
Grant Green
Melvin Sparks
.
' organ playing is cool and swinging, and the electric bass of
makes this album about as funky as
Impulse
ever got. Both
get some solo space as well, with
Ellis
sounding quite interesting playing an unamplified 12-string on a couple cuts.
gets some nice tones as well, and on
"Hobo Flats"
plays "an electronic guitar with Wah-Wah distortion" (remember, this is 1967
jazz
) "that gives a weird shimmering sound," according to the liner notes. Leave it to
to put a new spin on the guitar/organ sound. This is hot stuff. ~ Sean Westergaard