Roughneck

Eddie Roberts is guitarist with the New Mastersounds, a band of crack sessioneers who specialise in the kind of revivalist funk. This (his first solo effort) is maybe similarly dependent on the past for inspiration, but it's delivered with enough good humour, invention and vigour to soften the heart of all but the most hardened jazz snob (your humble reviewer included). Roberts' fluid, juicy guitar owes a lot to the likes of early George Benson, and by association the classic tones of Wes Montgomery, Grant Green and Kenny Burrell. But he's got an attack and bite that lifts him above the copyists, as well as a penchant for more exploratory, vaguely psychedelic playing, as on his tribute to the sadly neglected Gabor Szabo ('Szabo'). Le Maquis.