Second Wave

Description

This 1975 album is unique in many ways. First of all, it is the only album by keyboardist Roland Haynes. But more importantly, Second Wave has a sound – and a line-up – that is unlike any other jazz fusion album released before or since. Anchored by a fantastic rhythm section featuring Carl Burnett (Cal Tjader, Vince Guaraldi, and more notably Gene Harris and The Three Sounds) and Henry "The Skipper" Franklin (leader on a few tracks for Black Jazz, as well as with Ornette Coleman, Don Cherry, Hugh Masekela, and many others), the album showcases a duel of Fender Rhodes tickled by Haynes and Kirk Lightsey, who has played with everyone from Chet Baker to Pharoah Sanders to Sonny Stitt, not to mention a slew of Black Jazz dates. The cascading sound of the two electric pianos, one of which (Lightsey's) is often driven by a wah-wah pedal, gives Second Wave a distinctive vibe of its own; there are no horns or guitars getting in the way of these stunning keyboard jams. Some might hear a bit of 70s Miles Davis when Joe Zawinul, Chick Corea, Keith Jarrett, and/or Herbie Hancock were in the band, and Hancock's Head Hunters comes to mind (as well as later fusion guys like Jan Hammer and Bill Bruford), but Second Wave is sui generis. Our Real Gone reissue includes liner notes by Pat Thomas, author of Listen, Whitey! The Sights and Sounds of Black Power 1965-1975, which features a few quotes from drummer Burnett and bassist Franklin.