After three years, Branford Marsalis quit as Tonight Show bandleader partially due to frustration with the non-musical expectations that went with the job: forced repartee, requisite laughter at unfunny jokes, and host ass-kissing (as he put it.) Kevin Eubanks, guitarist with the band since Leno's start and composer of its closing theme "Kevin's Country," got the promotion to bandleader in 1995. He was more comfortable in the role than his predecessor and had better chemistry with Leno. As bandleader, he was also more attune to the attentions and expectations of the audience. Branford wasn't as amenable to the audience nor to the brass. His exit, then Eubanks's literal "swearing in"—a skit which hit upon tardiness, non-responsiveness to jokes, and the playing of obscure music—inadvertently revealed the rough dynamic Kevin had to follow.
Kevin and Branford had previously toured with the Grateful Dead as Branford Marsalis and The X-Men. Drummer Jeff "Tain" Watts and bassist Robert Hurst III rounded out the quartet and, with Kevin, supposedly pushed Branford into taking the Tonight Show job after his initial refusal. Both bandleaders go even further back to the near-beginning of their careers. Kevin (and his brother Robin) played alongside Wynton and Branford as members of Art Blakey and The Jazz Messengers. They toured Europe with Blakey in 1980 and set the experience to wax on the album Live at Montreux and Northsea. Kevin played with other luminaries (Roy Haynes, Dave Holland, etc.) in New York City before releasing his debut album Guitarist in 1983 on the sub-label Elektra Musician.
Like Fathers & Sons, Guitarist is a family affair. Kevin is joined sporadically by his brother Robin (trombone) and his cousins David (guitar, bass, the only other musician to play on all eight tracks) and Charles (piano.) And although Kevin had gotten his start with straight-ahead jazz, he seems more amenable than the Marsalis family to fusion as he plays the electric guitar on most of the album's tracks. The style of the music still follows along straight-ahead expectations, but does incorporate a bit of funk on Side B opener "Urban Heat." The album opens and closes with the spotlight on Kevin accompanied only by veteran David Eubanks playing rhythm guitar on the Spanish-inspired "The Novice Bounce" and bass on the Kind of Blue track "Blue in Green."
As the guitarist goes, so goes Guitarist, and neither take you very far. As much as Kevin shows his technique on the opener, his solos can be frustrating. On "Inner-Vision," he plays from thought to thought without variety or story, and the following track "Yesterdays," has Kevin playing a solo that sounds out-of-step, bloated and monotonous in an arrangement that just as readily befuddles. The Side A closer, Thelonious Monk's "Evidence" starts faithfully with the guitar in the Monk role, before this version drops the concept of the composition for a bouncy middle section of generic solos and a very sickly sounding trombone/bass combo at its heart. Only veteran drummer Roy Haynes (playing on just this track,) who recorded the song with Monk in 1958, seems to know how to bring out the song's immediacy, humor and eclectic joy.
Side B recharges the album with the aforementioned, breakneck "Urban Heat" before channeling Wes Montgomery in another Eubanks/Eubanks duet for guitar and bass, which starts devotedly and ends simplistically. "Untitled Shapes" is the last Kevin Eubanks composition on the record and his best one. His performance is vibrant, inventive and directional and the rest of the rhythm section takes that clarity and, for a first in any of the ensemble arrangements, can creatively react and support the titular guitarist. Kevin passes the solo to his cousin Charles on piano. Charles Eubanks plays a brightness and spontaneity into the track that makes you wish he could do the same for the rest of the album. You just wish Kevin knew how to end a song; this one, like many of the other originals, repeats itself one too many times before petering out into the closer where it's just Kevin again—a young guitarist.
Here is the discography surrounding Kevin Eubanks's debut album:
Guitarist
"Urban Heat" by Kevin Eubanks
"Alfie" by Kevin Eubanks on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno
Pass the Headphones!!
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