Curtis Mayfield

Live at Montreux: 1987 captures a concert performance by Curtis Mayfield from the Montreux Jazz Festival. At the time -- some seven years after his Live at Ronnie Scott's concert release -- Mayfield was in a particularly good place. He hadn't had any hits in a long time, but he had endured long enough to achieve the status of elder statesman in soul, and there was nothing wrong with a set that delved into the past that put him there. What's more, his band took a fresh approach, opening up with a Latin-flavored jazz instrumental that might not have gone over with his old audience, earlier in his career. He goes through his best-known songs but makes shifts in tempo and emphasis that set this show apart from the earlier Ronnie Scott's appearance -- "Freddie's Dead" lost none of its urgency and, in fact, has picked up some multi-layered percussive elements that, coupled with Mayfield's fervor, makes the song a bracing experience, even the thousandth time one might have heard it; and "Pusherman," for all of its other attributes, is also exquisite in the way it is treated. The video is extremely well-shot, with highly mobile camera work that gives us close-ups of everyone (including Mayfield on the lead guitar) at work, with superb editing to support it. The sound is loud and rich, and each song gets its own chapter marker. The disc opens automatically to a simple menu with the "play" option in the default position. ~ Bruce Eder, All Music Guide