Stepping out from the shadows of
Chick Corea's Elektric and Akoustic bands,
Patitucci made a pleasing solo debut here largely on the strength of his brilliant up-front soloing on electric and acoustic basses. Adept at the popular funk slapping manner on electric bass, darting fluidly and jaggedly up high on the Smith/Jackson five-string bass,
Patitucci always executes with the moves and body English of a bass player even when his instrument is up in the guitar range.
Patitucci's compositions are pretty good, too, thoughtful and not too reliant upon jazz-rock cliches. He gets a lot of expert help from a variety of hot sidemen, including the astonishing
Chick himself (who also produced the package),
Chick's drummer
Dave Weckl, other drummers like
Peter Erskine and
Vinnie Colaiuta, and the heated tenor sax of
Michael Brecker. Without a doubt, this first opus enhanced
Patitucci's developing reputation at the time. ~ Richard S. Ginell