Something must be up at Telarc Records. Long renowned as a blues and either straight or smooth jazz label, they've been branching out. Earlier in 2006 the label kicked out the killer One-Two Punch by Mars Williams and Liquid Soul, easily their most consistent and groovalatious album, and now comes the third solo date by Galactic tub thumper Stanton Moore. III is Moore's least ambitious yet. (Yeah, baby, that's a good thang.) Moore, organist and composer Robert Walter, and king of the underground six-string slinger sophisticates Will Bernard have come up with a deep, ass-shaking groove jazz trio date. Oh yeah, remember all those dates on Blue Note by John Patton, Baby Face Willette, Lou Donaldson, and Fred Jackson? Uh huh. Now y'all are gettin' it. The only real difference is there isn't anything retro in the approach this trio lays down. These are future funk grooves made by basic instrumentation from the past. Moore's always been about shakin' it down, but in the past his sense of syncopation and adventurous instrumental dictates won out over solid, in-the-pocket funkifying. That's not to say that All Kooked Out! and its predecessor, Flyin' the Koop, weren't good records...hell, they were great. But they were complex jazz and soul studies, whereas III is nothing but greasy. Walter composed the vast majority of the tunes here, and rather than dig deep into the wildly progressive side of his nature explored exponentially with his 20th Street Congress or the Greyboy Allstars, he keeps his backbeat funk close to the vest here (check the opener, Poison Pushy). Even when employing saxophonist Skerik and trombonist Mark Mullins, on Chilcock he keeps the blues in the mix and digs into them heartily. The album opener, Poison Pushy, touches the classic soul-jazz trio territory just enough to let you know what it's about, but then extrapolates on the paradigm with his arpeggios and Moore's chronic double-time breaks.

1		Poison Pushy
2		Licorice
3		Big 'Uns Get the Ball Rolling
4		Chillcock
5		(Don't Be Coming With No) Weak Sauce
6		Dunkin' In The Deep
7		Maple Plank
8		Water From an Ancient Well
9		When the Levee Breaks
10		I Shall Not Be Moved

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