Seriously Deep

Recorded and released in 1975, Seriously Deep is the only album producer, arranger, conductor, and composer David Axelrod recorded for Polydor. Strangely enough, Jimmy Bowen and Cannonball Adderley produced it, not Axe. He did write everything here, and one has no doubt that he hand-selected most of the set's players: Joe Sample on Fender Rhodes, clavinet, and Arp synth; Ernie Watts, Jerome Richardson, Jay Migliori, and Gene Cipriano on reeds and winds; trumpeters Snooky Young and Allen DiRienzo; Jimmy Cleveland and Dick Hyde on trombones; Billy Fender and John Morell on guitars; Jim Hughart on bass; drummer Ndugu Chancler; percussionist Mailto Correa; and concertmaster Jack Shulman for the strings. Sonically, the enormous orchestral arrangements from his Capitol and RCA albums are all but gone here, and instead Axe moves toward the jazz sounds of the age: jazz-funk. There is an even tone throughout the proceedings with big blotchy synth washes, rubbery basslines, funky breakbeats, and taut melodies articulated from the piano and horn charts. Given its time period, the album stands out in many ways from the dance-based funky soul and disco that were beginning to pervade electric jazz at the time, and instead creates a sense of driven slippery jazz-cum-funky big-band grooves that incorporate soul, film soundtrack music, and knotty but short solos from his horn players. The tough, break-driven "Miles Away" is clearly the album's standout. While it doesn't seem to cater to the dancefloor crowd, you can hear how punters would be driven out of their seats toward the center of the room because of its finger-popping 4/4 groove. With edgy guitar fills and the drums front and center, Sample moves around most of it to take a solo on the Arp, as the strings add harmonic changes to the basic melody structure. Sample adds the riff before some enormous fuzzed-out bass pops in for a moment; a ten-second guitar break follows and the strings are at it again. The hand drums -- congas mostly -- are tough and interact with Chancler beautifully.
The pace is kept eight and a half minutes later on "One." Despite its whomping two-note bassline and the drums passing from channel to channel in an Afro-Latin-based groove, Sample falls in with the Rhodes after this interlude and turns it into a sweet soul groover, kissed by horns on the coda. "1,000 Rads" needs to be taken as the true centerpiece of the album, channeling the heavy jazz-funk riffing and offering room for Watts' tenor solo, which toys with the outside margin before coming right back to join the slippery, swaying, good-time vamping from the band -- the cello solo on the cut by Nathan Gershman is an odd but beautifully textured touch as it stands apart from the string section, which enters sparingly, but in a very pronounced fashion for only a moment or two at a time. Drums -- kit and hand -- drive this baby forward; they weave, wind, and front each other off without losing any continuity in this loping, circular burner. This contrasts quite nicely with the tune "Ken Russell," written as a tribute to the filmmaker; it's dark, loopy, full of eerie drama and pathos, and, yes, cinematic. The synths, basslines, guitars, and Ndugu's cymbal work set this outside the realm of the beat with its long, minor-key lyric lines and slowly building dramatic tension that does nevertheless give way to some understated but majestic funk. Watts' flute solo on the cut is truly beautiful, as are Sample's soulful Rhodes touches. Gary Coleman's vibes add a nice touch on "Go for It," with Migliori's baritone sax twinning with the bass to create a perfect platform for Chancler to dig up the breaks, pop them out, and create the groove. Over the first half of "Reverie"'s four and a half minutes, it seems like an impressionist small-ensemble piece, quietly brooding, halting, and tense, but Axe slips a beautiful little melody under the door and the thing just opens up into something entirely different, and this exit to Seriously Deep is joyous, almost exultant, before it finds a way to whisper to a close. Seriously Deep is one of those Axelrod recordings that is seldom referred to, but is actually one of his career highlights. It summed up his past, placed his own music in the present, and pointed to the future without ever letting his grand ambition best him in the mix and execution. This is a stone classic that finally got its American debut on compact disc thanks to the fledgling Dusty Groove label in 2008. ~ Thom Jurek