You want some Old School soul jazz, like the Crusaders? Well, it’s not a thing of the past; here’s a team that sounds live, alive and humming over deep grooves, like a stack of CTI records from the 1970s sitting on your turntable. Dee Alexander/voc, Keith Brooks II/dr, Larry Brown Jr/g-voc, Marques Carroll/tp, Amr Fahmy/key, John Fournier/ts, Andrew Vogt/b, Victor Garcia/perc and Dan Leali/tam get together for a soul train fest of swinging toe tappers.
Brown gets his guitar wacka wooki-ing along with Alexander giving some sista’ preaching on the sleek “Mama Are We There Yet”. Midnight blue licks from Brown glide with congas and hip Hammond with Alexander cooing during “On the Way To Be Free” while she gets earthy on the mellow “Crazy Wrong”. The team sounds like the backup band for the O’Jays on the gospel’d “The Man Is Coming Back” and there’s a Sunday shuffle custom made for Joe Sample on “Behind The Crusaders”.
Come to think of it, this isn’t Old School, this is Real School! Stay after class!