Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Phillips, Simon
Label: Phantom Recordings
Released: 2015
Running time: 40:43
Rating: 4.5/5
Some albums only land on the editorial desk when an artist is about to hit the concert stages of Slovenia. That’s exactly what happened with the third chapter of the Protocol story. Behind it stands one of the most recognizable drummers on the planet, Simon Phillips, who brought his band Protocol to Slovenia for the third time in 2016, most recently in Maribor, where he presented the new record called »Protocol III.«, which is what we’re talking about here.
The album, which came out last year, is a stylistic continuation of its predecessor »Protocol II.«, released in February 2013. Phillips and the crew dug up a few old motifs and ideas and chased them out of the archives, while some of the tracks on the new album are completely fresh. The “sketches” were simply sitting in the archives waiting to be realized. And with Weingart (keyboards), Timmons (guitar) and Tibbs (bass), Phillips got exceptional musicians who aren’t just incredible virtuosos, but also skilled collaborators when it comes to putting compositions together. So with the help of the other three, Phillips found the pieces that were missing and carefully fitted each one into its spot in the mosaic of the new musical story.
The opener Narmada is basically a collision of rock and jazz with world music. It’s also a track that, thanks to its motifs, not only in the melody but also in the underlying rhythms (tabla), pulls toward Toto, where Phillips spent almost twenty years. A pure instrumental, like the whole record, that with a vocal added would grow into a song Toto could easily have used too. Drawing enthusiasm and inspiration from the masters of jazz rock fusion, who set the standards in the seventies – Herbie Hancock, Jeff Beck, Billy Cobham and, last but not least, the great Miles Davis in his “electric” period (the track Undercover) – no longer surprises on the new album. »Protocol III.« is a worthy musical story next to »Protocol II.«, with a few moments that, as you’d expect, give the new record its own special charisma. One of those is the track Outlaw, which supposedly came from a time when Phillips and Timmons wanted to lay the groundwork for launching a hard rock band, but it fizzled out. The idea waited, and the result is an excellent instrumental defined by a prominent guitar riff and, compared to the previous Protocol album, an unusual dose of blues influence (courtesy of Andy Timmons’ playing). A track like Circle Seven evokes the work of Joe Zawinul, and this is where Weingart really spreads his wings on the electric piano.
No need to point out the exceptional experience of all five musicians, or that after a few years of working and performing together the guys click fantastically. Playing with feather-light ease runs through this album, while the tracks were mostly played in a single take with very little studio polishing and fixing afterwards. Some of them were actually laid down on this album in just one take. Concert-style. In short: the Simon Phillips crew is never short of a common thread. The experience of listening to this album is similar to that of »Protocol II«. Everything works brilliantly. Lively, organic, natural. A lost album of jazz rock fusion, full of wittily lucid motifs that keep turning into a new motif and a new rhythm with undiminished wit,… Polyrhythmic structures are right at home here. Phillips once again stuns with his subtlety and variability, and with a sudden explosiveness too, which chemically fuses the “groove” of the strikingly musical and incredibly precise Ernst Tibbs on bass.
So this is an album that will rock the ground under the feet of every jazz rock connoisseur and gourmand. With all the improvisational excess it embodies, it also delivers incredible musical accessibility. That’s why it’s an excellent musical conglomerate that deepens the essence of the Protocol band and Simon Phillips’ place in this kind of musical setting. A setting with no limits, a setting where the incompatible gets joined together. Utterly endearing for a guy who was still diligently sticking to smooth jazz cues in the nineties.
Simon Phillips & Protocol – Catalyst:
Lineup
Simon Phillips – drums
Andy Timmons – guitar
Steve Weingart – keyboards
Ernest Tibbs – bass
GUEST MUSICIAN:
Satnam Singh Rangotra – tabla on track no. 1
Production
Simon Phillips
Tracklist
1. Narmada
2. Imaginary Ways
3. Outlaw
4. Catalyst
5. Amrita
6. Circle Seven
7. You Can’t But You Can
8. Undercover
