Music Review: Robin Eubanks & EB3 - Live, Vol. 1

Since the mid-sixties, jazz musicians have sought to combine electronic instruments with jazz to create something new and fresh sounding. The most obvious result of this mix is called fusion, but others have managed to do it taking different approaches that uses these instruments to actually expand their musicianship, instead of watering it down. The latest to take such an alternative approach to combining jazz and technology is trombonist Robin Eubanks.

I might as well get it out of the way right now and note that Robin Eubanks is the older brother of The Tonight Show's guitarist and bandleader Kevin Eubanks. A highly advanced trombonist of the J.J. Johnson variety (which 'bone player worth his salt isn't?), he's played in bands led by Sun Ra, Jimmy McGriff and McCoy Tyner. He's been putting out records on and off under his own name since the late eighties, but my own exposure to his work came primarily from his extensive tenure as a member of The Dave Holland Quintet. I've enjoyed his contributions to Holland's band so much for so long, I've gotten to view Kevin as that guy who is Robin's brother, not the other way around. (Tangent Alert: Kevin, incidentally, had guested on a Holland release, Extensions, years before Robin joined the band, and acquitted himself quite nicely on it.)

After a six year layoff from recording as a leader, Eubanks assembled a most unusual trio consisting of fellow Philadelphia native Orrin Evans on keyboards and Kenwood Dennard on drums.

Evans was a pianist in the Mingus Big Band but also quite familiar with electronic keyboards and how to get grooves, textures and melodies from it. Dennard has played for Dizzy Gillespie, Jaco Pastorius and Maceo Parker, so you know the guy can both swing and groove with the best of them.

But what makes this get-up so unusual is not just being a trombone-led trio; all of these guys supplement their main instruments with more high-tech ones to give the band a bigger sound than what is normally suggested by a trio. Eubanks plays trombone, of course, but he sometimes adds percussion pads and loops both. Other times he's playing a pretty wigged-out sounding electric trombone. And the bass? It's a keyboard bass supplied by either Evans or Dennard. Yes, that's right; Dennard is playing the synth bass while drumming.

Article Author: Pico

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