| Vital
Information: Tom Coster,
Hammond B-3 organ, Fender Rhodes, accordion
Frank Gambale,
guitar
Baron Browne acoustic & electric basses
Steve Smith,
drums
Tracks:
1. Cranial #1 Right Now (1:11)
Smith, Browne, Coster, Gambale (Vital Information Publishing ASCAP,
Bronze1
Music BMI, Frambale Music BMI, Kim-Tom Music BMI, )
2. Mr. T.C.
(4:52)
Tom Coster (Kim-Tom Music BMI)
3. Shagadelic
Boogaloo (5:37)
Tom Coster (Kim-Tom Music BMI)
4. Cranial #2
The Jinx (1:18)
Smith, Gambale, Coster, Browne (Vital Information Publishing ASCAP,
Frambale Music BMI, Kim-Tom Music BMI, Bronze1 Music BMI)
5. Soul
Principle (4:45)
Gambale, Browne, Coster, Smith (Kim-Tom Music BMI, Bronze1 Music
BMI, Kim-Tom Music BMI, Vital Information Publishing ASCAP)
6. Our Man In
Louisiana (5:16)
Browne, Gambale (Frambale Music BMI, Bronze1 Music BMI)
7. Cat and Mouse
(6:40)
Coster, Smith, Browne, Gambale (Kim-Tom Music BMI, Vital Information
Publishing ASCAP, Bronze1 Music BMI, Frambale Music BMI)
8. Cranial #3
Azul (1:09)
Coster, Gambale, Smith, Browne (Kim-Tom Music BMI, Frambale Music BMI,
Vital Information Publishing ASCAP, Bronze1 Music BMI)
9. Sideways
Blues (6:11)
Gambale, Smith, Browne, Coster (Frambale Music BMI, Vital Information
Publishing ASCAP, Bronze1 Music BMI, Kim-Tom Music BMI)
10. The
Blackhawk (5:41)
Coster, Smith, Browne (Kim-Tom Music BMI, Vital Information Publishing
ASCAP, Bronze1 Music BMI)
11. Cranial #4
Where We Live (2:03)
Smith, Gambale, Browne, Coster (Vital Information Publishing ASCAP,
Frambale Music BMI, Kim-Tom Music BMI, Bronze1 Music BMI)
12. The Fire
Still Burns (for Jimi) (3:00)
Hendrix, Smith, Coster, Browne, Gambale (Experience Hendrix, L.L.C.
ASCAP, Vital Information Publishing ASCAP, Kim-Tom Music BMI, Bronze1
Music BMI, Frambale Music BMI)
13. Cranial #5
Awaken The Hoodoo (7:31)
Browne, Coster, Gambale, Smith (Bronze1 Music BMI, Kim-Tom Music BMI,
Frambale Music BMI, Vital Information Publishing ASCAP)
14. Cranial #6
Mata Hari (2:47)
Coster, Gambale, Browne, Smith (Kim-Tom Music BMI, Frambale Music BMI,
Bronze1 Music BMI, Vital Information Publishing ASCAP)
15. Gingerbread
Boy (4:29)
Jimmy Heath (I don't have the publishing info, this is a jazz
standard)
16.
Cranial #7 Brake Failure (7:22)
Smith, Browne, Coster (Vital Information Publishing ASCAP, Bronze1
Music BMI, Kim-Tom Music BMI)
Album Credits:
Produced
by Steve Smith, Tom Coster, Frank Gambale and Baron Browne
Recorded and Mixed by Robert M. Biles at Neverland Studio, Marin
County, CA
Oct. 4-17, 1999
Mastered by Scott Hull at Classic Sound, NYC
Photos by Steve Jennings |
Liner Notes:
Show 'Em Where You Live is a phrase that a fellow musician
shouted out loud one day in 1974 when I was taking a particularly
passionate drum solo. Those words have always stayed with me as they
were very descriptive of what I was doing (or trying to do), during
that solo. That is what this recording is about. On our earlier
release, Where We Come From, we were showing
you our roots and influences. On the Live
Around The World '98 - '99 double CD, we were developing that
music and our new sound. Now we're letting you know that we live here.
Where? In the zone where the playing gets looser and tighter every
day. A place where we are clearly standing on the shoulders of those
who came before us, but that's not enough. We're continuing their
work, adding to it, making it our own, and creating music that is new,
vital and alive, right now.
As a band, Vital
Information is experiencing a time of opening up, letting go and
moving forward that excites and inspires us. We were all looking
forward to creating some new music after touring so much as a new
unit. This marks our first studio recording with Baron
Browne on bass. He mainly plays a four-string Fender and brings a
fresh, funky and swingin' approach to the band that is perfect for
this music. Frank Gambale has been
experimenting with new sounds on his Yamaha hollow body guitar and has
applied them to great effect on this recording. Tom
Coster brings a renewed prowess to his Hammond B-3, his original
Giulietti accordion and has now added the pure tone of his Fender
Rhodes to the mix. I've been wanting to play the Vital Information
music on my small jazz kit for some time now, and that's what I did
here. For most of the tunes you're hearing an old Sonor kit with an
18" bass drum, two toms, a snare, hi hat and two ride cymbals.
On the last
recording we had short improvisations that we dubbed "Cranials."
We wanted to keep that theme going on this project, but we also wanted
to expand those ideas into full length "tunes." These
pieces are about 90% improvised with just a groove, motif or short
melody to work with. We did that with "Brake Failure,"
"The Fire Still Burns" and "Awaken The Hoodoo,"
which is reminiscent of Tony Williams Lifetime's
"Emergency!"
Tom did his
homework and brought in some tunes, "The Shagadelic Boogaloo,"
"Mr. T.C." and the beginnings of "Cat and Mouse,"
which we all contributed to. The rest of the tunes were group writing
which consists of someone having a groove or a concept and then we all
go to work, jamming, adding, subtracting, slicing and dicing until we
have a finished piece of music.
"Soul
Principle" is our way of thanking the great Herbie Hancock
band, Headhunters, with Mike Clark and Paul Jackson,
for their influences. "Our Man In Louisiana" developed
around Baron's pulsating bass, Tom's Cajun-flavored accordion mixed
with Frank's James Bond meets Rod Serling inspired tremolo guitar.
"The Blackhawk" is the kind of tune you might have heard in
the heyday of that legendary San Francisco jazz club, by the same
name.
After trying a few
classic jazz tunes to feature the band playing very loose with Tom on
jazz accordion (I hope that's not an oxymoron), we settled on
"Gingerbread Boy," a great vehicle written by Jimmy Heath.
"Sideways Blues" was the result of a discovery of mine, if
you play a dotted quarter note rhythm through a 12-bar blues, it comes
out even. Hey, let's write a tune around that! Once Tom, Baron and I
figured out how to actually play it, Frank wrote the melodies and off
we went!
There is a lot of
freedom written into the tunes which will keep the music very fresh
for us for a long time. We've already been on the road playing most of
this music live, and it feels open and full of potential. That's
important to us because we play the tunes so many times after the
initial recording, they have to have room to grow. By the time you see
us on the road, these tunes will be different, but that's the beauty
of jazz. We let the music show us "where it lives..."
-- Steve Smith |
