February 03, 2004

Isaiah William's Let The Kid Play

Isaiah Williams' debut cd Let The Kid Play is a good rookie outing for an amazingly talented musician. With most songs either being covers or written by Drue (Isaiah's father), the album comes across as a little raw, with a tendency towards overplaying and being about thirty to forty-five seconds too long.

As an example, the first cut (with the same title as the album). It's a very out there tune, but way too busy for its own good. The bass line has so much slapping in it that it overwhelms the melody as well as crowds the drumline. On Top Of The Off (towards the end of the disc) also falls into this category. It's a well done drum solo, but a bit repetitive and probably too long in the running.

Some of the more interesting songs on this album are:

  • Seven, walking through several time signature changes (9/8 segments, 4/4 chorus and 7/8 verses) while holding it all together with a nice feel. Isaiah has a good solo overtop one of the 9/8 segments.
  • Groove Attack, which features the native DC sound of Go-Go.
  • Glory, a showcase for Drue's highly competent basslines.
  • Feel'n Good, a solid groove tune with a nice jazz feel. The middle section of this song has a neat way of dividing the 4/4 meter into a heavily syncopated pattern.

There are even two Christmas tunes on the disc. For those who don't know me, I generally detest Christmas songs. Isaiah's take on The Little Drummer Boy (which is a great choice for the title, if nothing else) is to slow it way down and inject a lot of funk into it. Joy To The World becomes a heavily bluesed out meditation.

Victor Wooten guests on two tunes -- Chick Corea's Spain and Larry Graham's People Make The World Go Round. I really enjoyed the version of Spain, but I was far more into Victor's playing than any other of the accompanists. Victor and Isaiah do trade solos back and forth towards the end of the song. Jeff Coffin and Futureman also make appearances. Actually, the final track on the disc is Futureman interviewing Isaiah. It's interesting both to listen to how Isaiah thinks and approaches music, but also to hear how he's pretty clearly a nine year old kid.

Posted by Casper at February 3, 2004 09:57 AM
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