Tom Scott's highly successful and involved career in the very highest levels of the business has touched several bases - from standards to jazz and pop - and he has worked with the Don Ellis and Oliver Nelson bands, and with pop icons like Joni Mitchell, Carole King, and George Harrison as well.
Tom's saxophone has featured on over four hundred recordings as a sideman, with credits including Thelonious Monk, Quincy Jones, Aretha Franklin and Frank Sinatra, and has earned him 13 Grammy nominations and 3 Grammy Awards.
A noted composer, arranger, bandleader and conductor as well as instrumentalist, he is also famed for composing the theme tune to the hit Seventies TV show Starsky & Hutch - The Complete Second Season.
But, despite Scott's place in the rock reference books, the saxmaster, who pioneered jazz-rock with the L.A. Express - a jazz-funk band that rocked audiences in the 1970s and later when it reformed in the mid-1990s, with a string of fantastic recordings - is more of a footnote in jazz.
He is a consistent and highly rated session player whose career has seen him traverse genres with ease and his pedigree as a musician cannot be doubted.
The Los Angeles-born multi- instrumentalist's new album "Cannon Re-loaded" is a collection of tunes closely associated with Cannonball Adderley interpreted by an all-star collection of players, to celebrate and reinterpret the music of the jazz giant.
On this tribute he's joyned by trumpeter Terence Blanchard, pianist George Duke (who was actually a member of the Adderley quintet and who also plays Rhodes and Wurlitzer), drummer Steve Gadd, bassists Marcus Miller and Dave Carpenter, and Larry Goldings on the Hammond B-3, and Nancy Wilson on two tracks "Save The Love For Me" and "The Masquerade is Over", from her classic 1961 recording Nancy Wilson & Cannonball Adderley.
The playing is of a high standard throughout.
The CD represents everything that makes contemporary jazz so enjoyable and satisfying; superb musicianship, strong and imaginative compositions, excellent arranging, live drums , and diverse interplay among the lead instrumental voices.
It's evident through the stellar production and sound quality that Tom Scott is a master at his craft.
It's all nicely played and beautifully recorded.
The best moments spring from his love of Adderley, with the delicious version of the opener "Jive Samba" (with George Duke, who dazzles on acoustic piano).
Without copying his hero, Scott plays eloquent tribute to an important, underrated figure in the jazz canon, smoothing off the rough edges for this well-chosen collection of tunes and re-establishing his own claim to return from the margins.
Stand out track : "Jive Samba", "Country Preacher" and "The Masquerade Is Over".
Tom Cat
Smokin' Section
Bluestreak
Tom Scott & the L.A. Express
Enjoy.