{"id":16354,"date":"2019-04-09T05:30:38","date_gmt":"2019-04-09T09:30:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=16354"},"modified":"2019-04-11T07:43:20","modified_gmt":"2019-04-11T11:43:20","slug":"album-review-dennis-coffey-live-at-bakers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2019\/04\/09\/album-review-dennis-coffey-live-at-bakers\/","title":{"rendered":"Album Review: Dennis Coffey &#8212; Live at Baker&#8217;s"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-16355\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/dennis_coffey_bakers.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"350\" height=\"350\" srcset=\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/dennis_coffey_bakers.jpg 350w, http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/dennis_coffey_bakers-150x150.jpg 150w, http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/dennis_coffey_bakers-300x300.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 350px) 100vw, 350px\" \/>In the course of his career, Dennis Coffey has made a name for himself several times over. The Detroit guitarist was a key session player in that city\u2019s music scene; as one of the famed Funk Brothers studio aggregation, he lent his skills to numerous funk and soul side of the 1960s and beyond. His staggering list of credits includes stinging guitar work on hits by Edwin Starr, Wilson Pickett, Parliament\/Funkadelic, Freda Payne and many others. His 1970s recordings under his own name showed his skill at creating distinctive instrumental funk of the highest order; his smash hit \u201cScorpio\u201d is a dance floor classic and an exemplar of its era.<\/p>\n<p>But his hard rocking style \u2013 often delivered with tasteful yet memorable guitar effects \u2013 is merely one of many tricks in Coffey\u2019s stylistic bag. As several archival releases have shown, Coffey has always been equally at home in the more exploratory context of soul-jazz. His newest release is another archival recording, albeit of a more recent variety. <i>Live at Baker\u2019s<\/i> documents a 2006 live set at a historic Detroit music venue, Baker\u2019s Keyboard Lounge.<\/p>\n<p>Using a quartet format including <span style=\"font-size: medium;\">Detroit Music Award winner Demetrius Nabors on keyboards, <\/span>bassist Damon Warmack and Grammy-nominated drummer Gaelynn McKinney, Coffey rips into an assortment of originals and covers, all delivered with a winning combination of taste and fire. Coffey\u2019s band brings a more jazzy texture to a reading of \u201cScorpio,\u201d one that explores the tune\u2019s potential beyond the funk idiom. Working without vocals, the trio digs into a soulful slow-jam vibe for a reading of the Temptations\u2019 \u201cJust My Imagination\u201d (he played on the original).<\/p>\n<p><i>Live at Baker\u2019s<\/i> is an understated affair, but the expressiveness and finesse with which Coffey plays these nine cuts shows that there\u2019s subtle power in restraint. He finds a sexy and hypnotic blues vibe within the standard \u201cMoonlight in Vermont.\u201d Elsewhere he showcases his original take on tunes by Freddie Hubbard, David Sanborn, Jimmy Smith, Miles Davis (\u201cAll Blues\u201d) and others.<\/p>\n<p>Coffey is far from retired. Today \u2013 at age 78 \u2013 he plays every Tuesday night at Detroit\u2019s Northern Lights Lounge.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the course of his career, Dennis Coffey has made a name for himself several times over. The Detroit guitarist was a key session player in that city\u2019s music scene; [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16355,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[31,32,40,42,49,65,69],"tags":[664],"class_list":["post-16354","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-funk","category-fusion","category-instrumental","category-jazz","category-new-release","category-review","category-soul","tag-dennis-coffey","cat-31-id","cat-32-id","cat-40-id","cat-42-id","cat-49-id","cat-65-id","cat-69-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16354","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16354"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16354\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16599,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16354\/revisions\/16599"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16355"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16354"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16354"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16354"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}