SAN DIEGO — Pop stars including David Byrne, Sting, Peter Gabriel and PaulSimon have tapped the rhythms of Africa, Brazil and other exotic places for fresh inspiration. This new world consciousness has also fired the most recent music of Russ Freeman and the Rippingtons.
Multi-instrumentalist Freeman, who writes all of the band's material, leaned heavily on imported rhythms for last year's "Welcome to the St. James Club." Throbbing bass, drums and percussion wove a dense, rhythmic jungle over which Freeman's Pat Metheny-ish melodies soared.
As a result of this new phase of growth, Freeman, 31, is writing and playing guitar (his main instrument) better than ever. He puts his band through its paces this Friday night at the Theater East in El Cajon, the final installment of the "Simply Jazz" series, a successful experiment with big-name light jazz in East County.
Freeman, who plays guitar and guitar synthesizer in concert and also contributes drums, bass, keyboards and assorted synthesized effects in the studio, is moving gracefully beyond his early roots: the Beatles and Nashville country music, jazz (especially 1970s George Benson) and rock-jazz hybrids such as Joni Mitchell and Steely Dan.
Last week, he was holed up in his Burbank studio/home, recording the Rippingtons' new release, "Curves Ahead," due in August. He said the nine-song project will further the rhythmic directions he and his band mates explored on "St. James."
"There is certainly as much or more African influence, and as much or more rhythm, on our new album, for a couple of reasons," Freeman said. "I wanted to experiment with more African rhythms because that's the essence of where jazz came from. From that came other offshoots--Latin, and I was heavily influenced by travels to the Caribbean and the island of Aruba, off Venezuela. I was impressed by the musicality of the people, and it was hard not be struck by the infectious grooves."
Infectious grooves have become an increasingly vital part of the Rippingtons' music, and the transformation has been all for the good. Where earlier albums such as the 1986 "Moonlighting" contained pleasant music that went over well with FM radio stations but didn't offer much in the way of raw emotion or musical challenges, "St James" pulses with rhythmic and creative life.
Freeman is well aware of his evolution as a musician, songwriter and arranger, but that doesn't mean he thinks less of his earlier work, which began with his 1985 solo debut recording, "Nocturnal Playground."
