| When tenor saxophonist David Murray was a mere teenager, he wowed the jazz world--at least that part of it that cared--with the World Saxophone Quartet, then an extreme rarity for their all-reeds lineup. Murray, a WSQ cofounder, was talented far beyond his years, able to hop entire octaves in a single breath and blow maelstroms of powerful free improvisation. For all his adventurousness, Murray's never forsaken soul, funk, and sweet R&B, all of which enrich this offering from his "funk group." The Tip and its sibling, Jug-A-Lug (both available in Japan since 1995), are powered by bassist Darryl Jones (a latter-day Rolling Stone) and guitarists Bobby Broom and Daryl Thompson. And while Murray crafts tone-bending solos that evoke Ben Webster as often as Albert Ayler, his band is the real story here. They're soul-trained lovers, coaxing romance from Sly Stone's "Sex Machine" and getting in all manner of fusion jabs in the title track. All along, Murray is the rich imaginer of full-storied tone, at once slip-sliding into avant-gardisms and staying solidly in the path of his more love-inducing, swing-era forbears. But there's plenty of Maceo Parker, Pee Wee Ellis, and J.B. Horns, too, blowing stylistic barriers far away. |