Peter Erskine - Peter Erskine (1982 Japanese Contemporary Vinyl LP)

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Peter Erskine - Peter Erskine | Vinyl LP - 1982 Japanese Contemporary Records (P-11298, Warner-Pioneer Corporation)

Erskine had spent four years in Weather Report, playing on Mr. Gone, 8:30 and Night Passage, but his debut album under his own name goes in a different direction entirely. The rhythm section here is acoustic: Eddie Gomez (Bill Evans's long-time bassist) and Erskine himself, with Kirkland's piano and Grolnick's electric piano providing harmonic colour. Don Alias adds congas, bata drum and shaker on several tracks, bringing a percussive richness that connects to Erskine's Weather Report experience without copying its aesthetic. "Leroy Street" opens with the largest ensemble on the album, both Breckers, Mintzer and Kirkland playing together over Gomez and Erskine. "In Statu Nascendi" is a percussion feature. "E.S.P.," the Miles Davis composition from the Second Great Quintet album of the same name, gets a reading with Mintzer on tenor, Kirkland on piano and Gomez on bass that treats the piece as a post-bop vehicle rather than a fusion one. "Change of Mind" brings Michael Brecker's tenor to the foreground, and side B opens with "All's Well That Ends" featuring Mainieri's vibraphone alongside Brecker. "My Ship" is Kurt Weill's ballad, Erskine, Gomez and Grolnick alone. "Coyote Blues" closes with the full band.

The personnel overlaps significantly with Steps Ahead (Erskine, Mainieri, Mintzer, and the Breckers all played in that group), but the music here is less polished and more open than the Steps albums. Kirkland, who was 27 at the time and about to join Wynton Marsalis's band, plays with the harmonic sophistication that would make him one of the most in-demand pianists of the decade. Michael Brecker's tenor playing on the tracks where he appears carries the rhythmic drive and harmonic adventurousness that defined his style. Gomez brings a classical precision to the bass that grounds the album.

This is the 1982 Japanese pressing on Contemporary Records P-11298, released the same year as the US original, made by Warner-Pioneer Corporation.