Wendell Harrison has long been active in the Detroit jazz scene as well as being a jazz educator.
It's About Damn Time is a self-released CD focusing mostly on the tenor saxophonist's original works, most of which are sparsely backed by guitar, bass, and drums.
Harrison's songs are an acquired taste, as he tends to incorporate repeated riffs with slow-to-develop improvisations, beginning with his labored opener, "Urban Expressions." Things finally pick up a bit with the breezy "Lord Not Another Lover," even working in a snippet of the standard "Softly, as in a Morning Sunrise." He blends funk and calypso in his "Pojo," which sounds like it could have been a 1970s pop song. Vocalist
Linda Boston is added for
Pamela Wise's "Take Time Out," with overdubbed backing vocals in a mundane arrangement.
Harrison's deliberate, funky setting of
Clifford Brown's bop masterpiece "Daahoud" is extremely disappointing, as it never gains steams with the removal of its magic, fluid lines. ~ Ken Dryden