| Life's Force is delightful surprise! When I saw the instrumental personnel, titles and stark black and white cover of this album,I expected a knotty ascetic avant garde offering. Nothing could be further from the truth, for this album sparkles with glimmering melodic passages and romantic, rhapsodic turns. Abdullah is a sextet with an odd configuration of three doubled instrumental groups; Brass, percussion and strings. The music weaves the six instruments together with maximum effect. Abdullah's trumpet, the main solo voice rises over the patterns with one of the cleanest, most regal tones to come along since big bands featured lead trumpets playing ballad solos. George Kanzler Jr. --Newark Star Ledger--May 11, 1980 |