Walter Bishop Jr. - Part 3

Hey there. Back again to finish up our look into NYC keyboardist, Walter Bishop Jr. 

First for today we have the album that was originally recommended to me: Cubicle. A mostly soul jazz/jazz-funk affair, joining Walter on the 1978 release, we have: Rene McClean and Pepper Adams on sax, Curtis Fuller on trombone, Randy Brecker on trumpet and flugelhorn, Joe Caro on guitar, Bob Cranshaw and Mark Egan on electric bass, Ray Mantilla on percussion with the legend Billy Hart on drums. We also have Carmen Lundy on vocals on the opening tune, "Valley Land." I've included an instrumental for this one. 

Not really a weakness on this one, but "Valley Land", "Those Who Chant" and another rendition of "Summertime" are my favorites here. We get to hear Bishop heavily on the Rhodes on this one which is always welcomed. 

The following year, in 1979, Bishop returned to a more straight-ahead sound on Hot House. This time around we have Junior Cook on tenor, Bill Hardman on trumpet, Sam Jones on bass with Al Foster on drums. Nothing wrong with this record but as I've mentioned before, just not my first choice in sound.

Lastly, we have another straight-ahead album. This time from 1993, Speak Low Again features Paul Brown on bass and Al Harewood on drums. Bishop plays quite a few of his staple tunes on this one. Again, nothing but good stuff here - I just prefer the soul-jazz and jazz-funk/fusion sound WBJ employed on a few of the other albums we covered.