Faces In Reflection
(1974)
I actually like this record. This was the first LP that really said what I wanted to say. The idea was to play intense music and use the voice as a tool for orchestration. I had been forced to sing with Frank Zappa, so my confidence was stronger. Don't get me wrong, I didn't then, nor do I now consider myself a singer. I always used singing as a means of communicating with my audience. Words obviously have a different affect than instrumental music. I felt the voice could be used to bridge the gap in a fusion of jazz, funk, latin, and pop music sources.
The band was John Heard bass, and my new buddy, Leon “Ndugu” Chancler on drums. Ndugu and I would go on to have a long musical relationship.
Actually the album was to be called Faces. But a Rock group had come out with an album called Faces and BG didn't want any confusion between the records.
I began experimenting with odd time signatures and various synthesizer textures. This was my first solo record using a synthesizer. Frank Zappa is responsible for my introduction to synthesizers. He told me one day, that I should play synthesizers. It was as simple as that! He bought an ARP 2600 and put it next to my Rhodes. It had all these knobs and looked totally intimidating. I took it home a few times with the manual, but got nowhere. I thought I was back in College studying some abstract foreign language. I finally settled on something simpler. It was an ARP Odyssey. I decided to use an ARP, purely to be different from Jan Hammer, who was playing the Mini Moog, and had a head start on me in the mastery of synthesis. Also, Ian Underwood was real good on the 2600, and I knew I'd sound like a total novice compared to him. But I must admit, I was really drawn to the possibilities inherent therein. There were some things that were a drag also! Remember, at this time there were no presets or ways of saving patches. Not only that, but you were limited to one note at a time. So overdubbing, a good memory and management system became very important. The year was 1974.
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George Duke