The Big Payback, recorded live
at the Lionel Hampton Jazz Club at the Le Meridien Hotel in Paris France, is
spirited and electric. The jazz club
experience is definitely captured well on this album. With Big James pounding out the vocals, and
guitarist Mike "Money" Wheeler knocking out a steady stream of
awesome guitar licks, the horn section, made up of Big James Montgomery
(trombone) and Charles
"Richard" Pryor (trumpet/flugelhorn) provides the icing on the cake. It just doesn't get much better than this.
Influences of James Brown and
George Clinton, two of my favorites, are infused into the title track, 'The Big
Payback'', originally by James Brown.
Big James breaks out the funk and for the duration of the song, hosts
the spirit of the hardest working man in show biz. This is one of my favorite tracks. It's funky, got a nice groove to it, and has
these really cool P-funk style spoken
background vocals. While on the topic
of the godfather of funk, we are also treated to a Funkadelic cover, 'I'll
Stay'. This is a really nice cover, the
vocals are toned down and smoothed out to set the somber mood of the song,
Pryor gives a powerfully cool trumpet solo on this one.
A couple of interesting
covers make the cut. 'Trying to Live My
Life Without You' , written by Eugene Williams , but recorded by both Otis Clay
and Bob Seger, is a big pleaser. To my
surprise, at the end, we get a cover of
Deep Purple's 'Smoke on the Water' to highlight Wheelers axe welding skills,
and to introduce the band. It's kind of
weird to hear 'Smoke on the Water' played with a band such as the Chicago
Playboys. It's a nice change of pace, to
hear a different take on this song, which differs immensely from the
over-played Deep Purple version as well as the football stadium version.
The next time I am in
Chicago, I am definitely going to see if Big James and the Chicago Playboys are
playing anywhere.
