- Sorry for not posting lately, my interweb connection was screwed up and I had severe problems with the upload. -
Eric Gale is the artist that I truly discovered after I was introduced to Cti (I noticed him for the first time on my first Cti-albums by Turrentine and Hubbard). Gale almost exclusively appeared as a sideman, he began playing mostly for various Soul-Jazz and R&B greats (Including Fats Domino, Jimmy Smith and Bobby Timmons but his looong tenure at Cti seemingly led to an increasing demand for him as a session musician.
Beside the huge number of Jazz recordings (inluding appearances for Sadao Watanabe, Herbie Hancock, The Fania All Stars (!)) he also kept playing R&B and Pop tunes (for Paul Simon, Michael Jackson, Diana Ross, Bill Withers, Billy Joel among many others).
He had sadly just rarely the chance to show his chops under his own name and recorded just this one album under the Cti/Kudu-belt (a couple of his later albums feature quite a few big names from the Cti-scene, including the string orchestra). He also played with the instrumental R&B outfit "Stuff".
The album varies a lot. The georgeous, lush and slow Jobim tune "Dindi" has Gale in the spotlight and truly shows what he stands for while the opener "Killing me softly" (Gale also played the song on the popular version by Roberta Flack) should've been left off (coffee powder advertisements come to my mind). "Cleopatra" is in a similar pop-mood but includes some nice soli. "White Moth" is the typical one in the Cti-vein and lets you tap your fingers and shake your head (I'm wondering though what Gale had in mind with the snare drum breaks inbetween). On "Tonsue Corte" Gale hints at Reggae and the funky "Forecast" reminds me to the lighter blaxploitation soundtrack songs by Isaac Hayes.
It's a shame that this is not available on Cd outside Japan (unless you want to pay for the expensive import).
Make sure to check out his nice guitar solo (starts at 3:28) in this Grover Washington video:
