what he says on this splendid album makes for a very enjoyable listen. Just don’t leave it another five years, Ray – none of us are getting any younger!

Cuneiform Records Rune 553

Ray Russell (electric guitar, acoustic guitar, Prophet-5 pad, bass synth, keys); Simon Phillips (drums, synths); Tim Whitehead (soprano sax, tenor sax); Johnny Thirkell (trumpet, flugelhorn); Rupert Cobb (trumpet); Jim Watson (acoustic piano, keys, ARP Odyssey); Charlie Baldwin (Buchla Easel); Laurence Cottle (bass); George Baldwin (bass); Ian Palmer (drums); Ralph Salmins (drums); V.O.A. (jazzrap)

Recorded Small World Recorders, Sansom Studios, Phantom Recordings. No recording dates

The album title could be referring to a treacherous stretch of road or alluding to a comment made by one of Ray Russell’s guitar contemporaries, Soft Machine guitarist John Etheridge, who once noted that: ‘Jazz audiences treasure all the growls, squeaks and honks of a saxophone, but as soon as a guitarist bends a string: “he’s playing rock guitar!”’ Ray Russell has had a long, varied, and successful musical career, stretching over 64 years – he started out playing with the John Barry Seven when he was just fifteen.

Since then, he’s played straight-ahead jazz, jazz-rock fusion, pop, rock and classical music. He’s been a solo artist, band leader, session musician, and television and film soundtrack composer. You can find out more in an interview Ray did with Jazz Views a couple a years ago.

This is Russell’s first album in five years (the last being 2020’s Fluid Architecture), and unusually, he handed over the production duties to Greg Walsh (they have worked together on various projects including Tina Turner and Heaven 17). There are eight tracks on the album and most of them were recorded live, an exception being two numbers featuring drummer Simon Phillips, who recorded his parts at his home studio in California and then posted the sound files.

Russell and Phillips have known each other for fifty years and worked on numerous projects together, including the jazz-rock fusion trio RMS with the late bassist Mo Foster. So despite the geographical distance, the musical distance between the two is non-existent – it’s hard to believe that they were not in the same room during the recording sessions.

Russell and Walsh have assembled a notable cast of musicians, who between them have played with an array of artists that includes Nucleus, Level 42, Bill Bruford’s Earthworks, Loose Tubes, Kurt Elling, Randy Brecker, Georgie Fame, John Dankworth, ABBA, Black Sabbath and David Bowie. Also playing on the album are Russell’s sons George Baldwin – bassist on a couple of tracks – and Charlie Baldwin who plays a Buchla Easel (an analogue synthesiser) on one number.

With a career as varied as Russell’s it’s no surprise to find that the music on this album is eclectic. The two numbers featuring Phillips (and co-composed by the drummer and Russell) are jazz-rock tunes. The opener, ‘Just For Clicks,’ has a tense intro, with a strummed guitar, dark bass line, tumbling drum pattern and ascending keyboard riff, combining to create a sense of menace, before guitar and soprano sax break out to play the theme in unison.  The midtempo number features two stirring solos, starting with Russell, who plays knotty, angular guitar lines, laced with distortion, vibrato and overdrive. His guitar sings, soars and lifts the heart. This leads seamlessly into Jim Watson’s flowing, rippling acoustic piano solo, one of the album’s many highlights. It all makes for a cracking opener.

The second tune featuring the Philips/Baldwin rhythm section is the title track, which begins with a short solo guitar section treated with reverb. Phillips and Baldwin set up a driving midtempo rock groove, over which Russell’s guitar sweeps and soars. There’s also some nice call-and-response between guitar and bass.

Both Russell and Phillips love playing around with time signatures, and around the 3:33 mark, there’s a switch in tempo leading to a darker, slower, heavier sound. Russell then takes off with a searing solo and the tempo speeds up again. At the coda, Russell adds acoustic guitar to the mix. It’s another fine number.

‘Walking With Giants’ is where jazz meets funk meets hip-hop meets electronica,  as V.O.A’s rapid-fire rap (which includes references to Dizzy and Bird) skates over Ralph Salmins’ thundering backbeat and Russell’s  synth bass lines. Also in the mix are Rupert Cobb’s horn blasts and some scorching guitar playing from Russell. It’s an exciting sound. By contrast, the following song, ‘So Be It,’ is a tender solo acoustic guitar piece, and this reviewer would love to see Russell release an acoustic guitar album, because it’s an aspect of his playing that is not heard nearly enough.

The gloriously titled ‘From Here to Dexterity,’ starts off with a sombre bass line played by Laurence Cottle, accompanied by a mournful theme played by Johnny Thirkell on trumpet and flugelhorn. The piece switches to double time with Cottle’s walking bass line and Palmer’s 16th note ride pattern, over which Russell’s guitar soars. The piece then slows down, making way for Watson’s solo played on an ARP Odyssey. Then it’s back to the double time section, before slowing the tempo again at the song’s conclusion.

‘We Are Here,’ is another piece that begins with a slow build-up before breaking out into its anthemic theme played by Russell, followed by a powerful solo that builds up to a climax (just listen to that guitar tone), this leads onto Tim Whitehead’s short but effective soprano sax solo, with Watson following with a long solo on electric piano. The ballad ‘Airscapes’ has a mysterious opening, with guitar and bass creating a slow, spacious soundscape, before a slow drum beat and delicate phrases played on an electric piano support Russell’s long solo.  Watson plays a solo which highlights his deftness and lightness of touch.

‘Why Wait To Be Invited,’ starts off with an ascending blast of sound before combining a slinky midtempo funk groove with a bass line that has hints of reggae and dub (Cottle’s bass playing on this track is exceptional). The whole piece evokes a feeling of grace and poise, and is interspersed with dramatic horn blasts, Charlie Baldwin’s subtle electronic sound textures, a guitar solo from Russell, and Tim Whitehead – playing a tenor sax for the first and only time on this album – grabs the opportunity with both hands, delivering a rip-roaring solo.

In an interview promoting this album, Ray Russell explained that the five-year gap between albums was because he only made a new record whenever he had something to say. Well, what he says on this splendid album makes for a very enjoyable listen. Just don’t leave it another five years, Ray – none of us are getting any younger!