Fourplay - Fourplay (30th Anniversary Edition) (2021) [Hi-Res]

There was no great cunning master plan that brought noted jazz instrumentalists Bob James (keyboards), Lee Ritenour (guitar), Nathan Eat (bass) and Harvey Mason (drums) together to form a supergroup. Released in October 1991, Fourplay - aided by the success of the smash single "After The Dance" - peaked at No. 1 in America's Contemporary Jazz charts for 33 weeks and sold over a million copies. It rose to No.16 in the R&B rankings and No.97 in America's list of top pop records. Now three decades old, the band's self-titled debut album, was not only the blueprint for the group's sound but also functioned as a foundation stone upon which Fourplay built a remarkable career.

Lee Ritenour plays some tasteful guitar lines in a deft call-and-response exchange with James. Drummer Harvey Mason is responsible for ‘Max-O-Man,’ which opens with an intro spotlighting James’ crystalline piano melodies before mutating into a brisk uptempo groove seasoned with Ritenour’s tasteful guitar lines. ‘After The Dance‘ reconfigures Marvin Gaye’s 1976 Motown hit into a silky slow jam featuring the vocals of Detroit singer, El DeBarge, who was also signed to Warner Bros at the time. “El DeBarge was a perfect complement to the record and brought his R&B audience along with his beautiful voice and musicality,” remembers Nathan East. The Bob James‘ tune, ‘Quadrille‘ – named after a 19th-century country dance – is an elegant mid-tempo piece defined by subtle shifts in mood and instrumental colour. James plays a deft acoustic piano solo over a funk-infused section. Ritenour demonstrates his fingerboard prowess with a fleet-of-finger solo that blurs the line between jazz and rock vocabularies. The next tune, the Harvey Mason-written ‘Midnight Stroll,’ has the distinction of being the first song that the band recorded together and its easy-going, subtle elegance sets the tone for the album as a whole.

Bob James, keyboards
Lee Ritenour, guitars
Nathan East, bass
Harvey Mason, drums