With a rhythm section made up of two electric jazz legends, bassist
Alphonso Johnson and drum god
Billy Cobham, this quartet uses the
Dead's music as a starting point, then takes off to places unimagined by most Deadheads.
Dixie Dregs founder
T. Lavitz sits in the organ and keyboard chair, while guitar wunderkind
Jimmy Herring steps to the front to take fusion guitar to heights unreached since
Al Di Meola left
Return to Forever. Looking like
the Allmans' little brother,
Herring moves from looping lines reminiscent of
Jerry Garcia and
Dickey Betts to inspired improvisations out of the
Larry Coryell/
John McLaughlin/
Al Di Meola playbook. Longtime
Dead listeners will recognize most of the melodies, but the arrangements and solos by this amazing quartet transform the originals. And, while this album only hints at the phenomenal interplay
Jazz is Dead achieves in concert, it is one of the most remarkable studio recordings to fall under the often-maligned jazz-rock fusion banner in many a year.
Cobham's work with
Mahavishnu Orchestra and
Johnson's with
Weather Report helped redefine the parameters of jazz and rock in the '70s. Through this project, they and their bandmates bring musical adventurousness, rhythmic complexity and instrumental virtuosity to a whole new generation, while rekindling the spark in those who were around for fusion's heyday 25 years earlier. With
Blue Light Rain, Jazz Is Dead affirms that this music anything but.