Recorded and released in 1975, Seriously Deep is the only album producer, arranger, conductor, and composer David Axelrod recorded for Polydor. Strangely enough, Jimmy Bowen and Cannonball Adderley produced it, not Axe. He did write everything here, and one has no doubt that he hand-selected most of the set's players: Joe Sample on Fender Rhodes, clavinet, and Arp synth; Ernie Watts, Jerome Richardson, Jay Migliori, and Gene Cipriano on reeds and winds; trumpeters Snooky Young and Allen DiRienzo; Jimmy Cleveland and Dick Hyde on trombones; Billy Fender and John Morell on guitars; Jim Hughart on bass; drummer Ndugu Chancler; percussionist Mailto Correa; and concertmaster Jack Shulman for the strings. Sonically, the enormous orchestral arrangements from his Capitol and RCA albums are all but gone here, and instead Axe moves toward the jazz sounds of the age: jazz-funk. There is an even tone throughout the proceedings with big blotchy synth washes, rubbery basslines, funky breakbeats, and taut melodies articulated from the piano and horn charts. Given its time period, the album stands out in many ways from the dance-based funky soul and disco that were beginning to pervade electric jazz at the time, and instead creates a sense of driven slippery jazz-cum-funky big-band grooves that incorporate soul, film soundtrack music, and knotty but short solos from his horn players. The tough, break-driven Miles Away is clearly the album's standout. While it doesn't seem to cater to the dancefloor crowd, you can hear how punters would be driven out of their seats toward the center of the room because of its finger-popping 4/4 groove. With edgy guitar fills and the drums front and center, Sample moves around most of it to take a solo on the Arp, as the strings add harmonic changes to the basic melody structure. Sample adds the riff before some enormous fuzzed-out bass pops in for a moment; a ten-second guitar break follows and the strings are at it again. The hand drums, congas mostly, are tough and interact with Chancler beautifully.
Enjoy it!
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