360 records from 2000: 94. Ernest Ranglin - Modern answers to old problems

94. Ernest Ranglin: Modern answers to old problems

Country: Jamaica etc.
Artist: Male solo artist
Career: recording since 1964
Language: Instrumental/English/Unknown African language(s)
Genre: African/Funk/Jazz

It took me a while (couple of months) to warm to this amazing record, but now I’m fully converted.
At first I hastily scribbled down a short note for a record I saw ending up somewhere halfway down the charts:
‘It’s basically a jam record, but these aren’t your average jam musicians. Ernest Ranglin has a remarkable resume, and this mix of African funk, jazz, dub production (those sound effects!) and soulfulness combines all of his experience in one package. Except, it’s easier to play this stuff than it is to write it, it seems. The playing is hot, the basic material (compositions) is absent.’
I’m including the above review to illustrate how wrong you can be. A couple months later this is a righteous jam. I wouldn’t be without it. The compositions are GREAT, btw. One of the great funk/jazz albums.

Everything I like about it is summed up in one of the few (the only) negative reviews of this record I could find, by one M. Scheiner on Amazon:
The album, right off the start is too produced and too 'modern,' solely propelled by the wurlitzer organ, which in my opinion is a terrible addition. Get some piano in there, some Monty Alexander-- The african musicians that are listed on the packaging trick you into thinking that the album is going to be real rootsy like "In Search..." Instead there is an unecessary flood of chintzy chimes and snythisizer sounds. Even the African singing that is usually so beautiful becomes marred by synthisizer effects. There is some good here and there, specifically by way of Ranglin's great guitar playing, but otherwise the music sounds like something being pumped in a dentist's office. Get some African drum circle work in there, get the studio produced mumbo-jumbo out- Ranglin needs to find his roots once again, in the jungles of Africa.
I love the synthesizers and the studio-mumbo jumbo and the wurlitzer! Keep that African drum circle out, Ernest! Thanks.

At its best: Memories of Senegal, Outernational incident, Many roots, Sound invasion