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DIXIE DREGS
California Screamin' (Zebra)
Reviewed by Shaun Dale
The label jazz-rock fusion was applied to a wide range of music and sometimes covered a multitude of musical excesses. At its best, fusion drew tough beats and electric energy from rock and combined them with the instrumental virtuosity and creative improvisation that is the hallmark of good jazz. Of course, it wasn't always at its best.
When it was at its best, it was in the hands of musicians like those who made up the Dixie Dregs. From their roots as a student band covering the Allman Brothers and the Mahavishnu Orchestra, they developed an original sound that kept them in the front of the fusion pack and earned Grammy nominations for six of their first eight albums. Guitarist Steve Morse went on as a leader and as the featured guitarist for Kansas and, currently, Deep Purple. Drummer Rod Morgenstein, another original member, manned the kit for Winger before joining T Lavitz, who took over the keyboard duties for the Dregs in 1978, in the jamband Jazz Is Dead last year.
Last fall Morse, Morgenstein and Lavitz, along with other members of the 1979 Dixie Dregs lineup Allen Sloan (violin) and Andy West (bass), reunited at LA's Roxy Theater, along with members of later Dregs incarnations, Dave LaRue (bass) and Jerry Goodman (violin). California Screamin' is the recorded document of that reunion, and has put the Dregs back on the road. It's a good thing. And a great album.
If the Allman/Mahavishnu intersection of their musical youth doesn't make perfect sense to you at first glance, it certainly will after you've heard Mahavishnu Orchestra alumnus Jerry Goodman joining the Dixie Dregs on a scorching cover of Dicky Betts' "Jessica." Outside of some highly original interpretations of some very traditional material, the only other cover is Frank Zappa's "Peaches En Regalia," for which Zappa's son Dweezil joins the band. The rest of the material is Dregs originals, drawn from the entire 25 year range of the band's history. Each take is historic in itself, with definitive performances of classic material.
Jazz-rock fusion has given way as a popular genre, as the rock players with enough chops to keep up turned to the improvisational style of the jambands if they didn't become full time jazzmen. The best of the fusion jazz players continued on in other styles, often becoming some of the best known names in the more progressive end of the jazz spectrum. Too many, unfortunately, abandoned the tougher edge of jazz-rock for a softer jazz-pop sensibility that gave rise to the "smooth jazz" category of instrumental pop.
The best of the bunch, though, kept on keeping on, playing high energy, highly creative music for a still appreciative audience. Among the best in the bunch were the Dixie Dregs, and now, 25 years later, they're still laying claim to that distinction. Stand by for the comeback of the millennium.
Track List:
Wages Of Weirdness * Peaches En Regalia * Freefall * Aftershock * The Bash * Night Meets Light * Refried Funky Chicken * Jessica * What If * Sleeveless In Seattle * Ionized * The Great Spectacular * Dixie
© 2000 - Shaun Dale