Tom Grant’s 1978 Timeless release Mystified sees an uncharacteristic reissue from Music on Vinyl on white coloured vinyl, an album that was recorded on the same date, with the same players and during the same session as Mahavishnu Orchestra bassist Rick Laird’s album Soft Focus. Both albums, produced by Joe Henderson and featuring covers of his songs, even share the same black and red album artwork. The album is a dyed in wool jazz fusion album, featuring pungent and abrasive musicality and serious chops. This reissue is a limited release on the 45th anniversary of the original release date, limited to 1,000 copies.
Mystified is an electric session, featuring Henderson on tenor, Laird on electric bass, drummer Ron Steen and Grant on keys. The set begins with the Henderson penned No Me Esqueca, or It Doesn’t Make Me Sick in Spanish, a track taken from one of his early seventies Milestone sessions and one of the milder moments of the set which is predominantly sax led. Grant’s Fender keys do manage to creep into the frame in an elongated solo section where he playfully skips up and down the changes, channelling a raw and gainy sound on his Rhodes similar to that of George Duke. The jazz dance track and Paul Murphy electric ballroom spin Caribbean Firedance is a storming number brought together with dark, murky chord changes and supplied with angular bass work from Rick Laird, whose fuzzy and slippery bass sound pulsates and throbs across the album. Grant solos with both his left and right hand in synchronicity, accessing Latin styles of keyboard playing. A fiery album and a must have for fans of jazz-fusion and jazz-funk.
Buy the LP HERE
Listen to the tracks HERE
