Return of Magic In Threes

Another collection of high-quality soul/jazz/funk instrumentals from Magic In Threes — in places, The Return… is pure JB’s derived funk: Hold Me Down for example, with its chicken scratch guitar and Moog, could be a classic Pee Wee Ellis/James Brown instrumental. Except that rather than just jamming on a single chord for six minutes like the Godfather would, MITs work in sophisticated multi-instrument riffs, counter melodies, bridges, chord changes and codas, bringing a film soundtrack-level of sophistication to the arrangements. What’s more, they do it in tracks that rarely reach three minutes long (thirteen of the fifteen tracks here are sub-two minute), constantly delivering little musical surprises while reducing the ‘jam factor’, the contrast between the richness of the tracks themselves and their almost Hemingwayesque brevity perfectly pitched.