Pat Bianchi
Something To Say – The Music Of Stevie Wonder
Savant, 2021

Pat Bianchi‘s seventh album as a leader is a tribute to Stevie Wonder.

Among the most gifted and well known Hammond players of contemporary jazz, Pat Bianchi owes his fame to his long collaborations with Pat Martino and Lou Donaldson. Parallel to his session work which has seen him collaborate on over 30 records, Bianchi has also developed a brilliant solo career in which he recorded seven CDs.

The latest of which is this homage to Stevie Wonder, released in November 2021 by Savant. Stevie Wonder was (and continues to be) one of the protagonists of modern popular music with a music that always blends pop, rock, R&B, jazz and soul. So Bianchi, with a lineup that features Paul Bollenback on guitar, Byron Landham on drums, and with guest Wayne Escoffery on tenor, offers a few of some of Wonder’s most famous songs, here revisited as instrumentals.

The songs have a very elegant sound, somewhere between between jazz-rock and fusion, with a generally soft but sometimes virtuosic approach such as the fast scales of the opener “Go Home”. The arrangement of “Superstition” is original with a beautiful Hammond vamp “colored” with the space sounds of the guitar, while “Isn’t She Lovely” is a lively swing that seems to come out of a 50’s smokey club. “Ribbon in the Sky” is played as a solo by the leader and has a very warm introduction that alone makes the record worth listening to.

Something to Say – The Music of Stevie Wonder is an original tribute to the worlds of Stevie Wonder whose compositions are here the heart of an album recorded by a Hammond Trio that demonstrates remarkable groove and taste. A carefree record, which will appeal to everyone!
(EM)