Black Jazz Records #1 - GENE RUSSELL New Directions

A rollicking hard-piano groove soul-jazz LP and a fairly straight-ahead start to the Black Jazz label. 'New Directions' is not a particularly intensely funky release nor one offering much of a modal electric feel but Black Jazz Records label producer/ executive director Gene Russell's very first album for his own label offers lots of chestnut standards like 'On Green Dolphin Street', 'Willow Weep For Me', 'Black Orpheus', and (Horace's) 'Silver Serenade', all played with a loose punchy Steinway piano slam that's quite similar to Russell's "Up, Up & Away" LP on Decca from the mid-1960's or something you'd hear from the early The Three Sounds or perhaps Quartette Tres Bien. Eddie Harris' huge smash 'Listen Here' is the likely stand-out track although Stevie Wonder's 'My Cherie Amour' is also typically lovely and smooth-swinging. Certainly a nice record but the best was yet to come, funk-heads!