SPILL ALBUM REVIEW: BERNIE WORRELL, CINDY BLACKMAN SANTANA & JOHN KING – SPHERICAL

BERNIE WORRELL, CINDY BLACKMAN SANTANA & JOHN KING
SPHERICAL
INFREQUENT SEAMS

The collaboration between guitarist John King, keyboardist Bernie Worrell (Parliament-Funkadelic, The Talking Heads), and drummer Cindy Blackman Santana (Pharoah Sanders, Lenny Kravitz) came out of King’s desire to experiment in 1994. While the unlikely trio jammed over loose song structures over the course of a single eight-hour recording session, the tapes would be lost to time. Recently recovered, King has assembled these jams in Spherical, a unique record that may include some of the last unheard material from Worrell who passed away in 2016.

Spherical opens with “Future-Blues”, a song which blurs the lines between psychedelic and blues infused rock with elements of funk and jazz. The instrumental jam has a structure and sets the tone for the album. While there is no denying the quality of musicianship among this trio, nor can we deny the creativity behind a project of this nature, “Future-Blues”, along with much of the following record, largely seems like an excuse for King to rip solos over groovy beats and spacy keys. To his credit, however, King’s approach to soloing is highly reminiscent to that of Jimi Hendrix and Jeff Beck.

My criticisms of “Future-Blues” are persistent for much of the album. Furthermore, the recording quality of this session leaves much to be desired. The album sounds as though it was a bootlegged recording of a concert with the volume of each instrument competing over one another while also sounding as though they’re at a distance. Despite this, there are still a number of great moments on the record. The first comes from the frantic pace of the opening of “Unfunkingstoppable” before the reprieve of Worrell’s cosmic keys. “Soulful Sunrise” is a bluesy take on gospel that is filled to the brim with soul as the band effortlessly displaces rhythms without disrupting the church feel of Worrell’s organ. Additionally, the album comes to close with a guitar composition, “Muddy’s Dream” a song that sees King play with the blues in a sophisticated manner and, while very self-indulgent, brings the record to a strong conclusion.

Spherical is a niche record. Collecting eight instrumental jams, its release is not designed to reach that of the mainstream, but rather is a snapshot to a moment in time. In this aspect, Spherical is a celebration of unfiltered creativity; however, the album would benefit from the use of more structured songs to allow for these jams to grow and shift into new and exciting territory, along with featuring a higher fidelity of audio quality. There is definitely gold found between Worrell, Blackman-Santana, and King, but the record as a full length, in its current jam like quality, feels more indulgent than anything.

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