Steve Khan - Eyewitness (1981 Japanese Trio Records Vinyl LP)

Steve Khan - Eyewitness | Vinyl LP - 1981 Japanese Trio Records (AW-25010, Trio-Kenwood Corporation)

Eyewitness is the record where Steve Khan stopped being only a session guitarist. Through the 1970s he was one of the busiest players in New York, the man on call for Steely Dan, the Brecker Brothers and dozens of others, but the four musicians here had found something of their own jamming after hours during the sessions for Steely Dan's Gaucho. Khan put down the Telecaster and the big-band arrangements, picked up a Gibson with a touch of reverb, and let the band play. What they made is groove and atmosphere before anything else: Anthony Jackson's six-string bass laying down lines no one else would think of, Steve Jordan and the former Weather Report percussionist Manolo Badrena weaving Latin rhythm underneath, and Khan's guitar hanging chords in the air rather than racing through them. "Guy Lafleur", named like several of his tunes after a hockey player, builds to a bass solo fusion listeners still talk about. It is relaxed on the surface and taut underneath, and Khan has called it his favourite of all his records.

The quartet became a proper band. Eyewitness opened a trilogy that continued with Modern Times in 1982 and Casa Loco in 1983, and its loose, interactive approach influenced a generation of players who wanted something more exploratory than the slick studio fusion of the era. The cover is by Jean-Michel Folon, the Belgian artist the title track is dedicated to. Worth knowing that this Japanese pressing on Trio came out in 1981, two years before the album reached the United States on Antilles, which makes it the first issue anywhere.

This is the original 1981 Japanese pressing on Trio Records, manufactured by Trio-Kenwood Corporation, catalogue number AW-25010.