Welcome




Friday, January 7, 2011

Cerebral Hemisphere under review

I felt lucky to have Mr Nick Deriso.A music critic, Review my CD Cerebral Hemisphere. The reading of this blog will share his honest and fair report of my work.

Artist: Larry Potillo
Album Title: Cerebral Hemisphere
Review by Nick DeRiso
Rating: Three stars (out of five)

New Jersey’s Larry Potillo presents an interesting dichotomy.  On the one hand, his newest recordings can be found on a jet-black compact disc, with a throwback label replicating a vinyl long-player.  Potillo, born in Dover in the early 1950s and now living in Rockaway, also says he became interested in music after seeing a concert by the celebrated entertainer Sammy Davis Jr.
Yet Cerebral Hemisphere is anything but old school. In fact, Potillo often settles into comfy modern genres like smooth jazz and space music.  For instance, “Rem State” astutely incorporates elements of trance music, using melody and beats to create something both danceable and listenable.  Potillo builds an electronic crescendo, then tears it down to an icy, emotionally devastating quietness.

If he sounds so very alone, that’s because Potillo was. The entirety of Cerebral Hemisphere was produced on a Yamaha DGX keyboard. There are times, and “Rem State” is one of them, when that works perfectly. Similarly, “Divided Feeling” has a space-filled melancholy, with Potillo doing this brilliant job of replicating a souring soprano saxophone.  Later, the foreboding “Black and White” achieves a techno aridness as Potillo adds flourishes of otherworldly keyboard washes. These contemporary tone-poems are insular enough to be produced in splendid isolation.  They don’t require the improvisational camaraderie of soul music.  The same can be said, too, for his pleasing forays into more conventional smooth-jazz compositions like “Tokyo Sun Dance,” a breezy, upbeat diversion.  “Sailing For Your Love” is a similarly congenial.
“Divided Feeling” perfectly replicates the sophisticated city soul of Michael McDonald-era Doobie Brothers. 

“Beach House on the Moon” and the title track recall the most accessible 1980s music of Bob James and (because of Potillo’s horn-like soloing) David Sanborn.  Adult-contemporary sides like those keep Cerebral Hemisphere from falling into a mellow snooze. Potillo connects again with this more approachable instrumental sound, one that boasts a relaxed, positive feel while blending jazz, pop, Quiet Storm soul and new age.  There is a concurrent emphasis on the loose groove, rather than towering runs of improvisation.

On “Cerebral Hemisphere,” Potillo switches to a sparkling new tone, almost like a harpsichord, and weaves a hypnotic pulse. He gives “Vampire” this appropriately dark portent, with a harrowing keyboard signature and a distant, menacing beat. “Empty Crib,” which employs a driving hip-hop meter, allows Potillo to reimagine his keyboard as a vibraphone.  Here, he has the airy, pianistic touch reminiscent of George Shearing’s early 1960s quintets. The subsequent “Night Mirage,” Potillo’s album closer, features the same vibes-like effect, but this time within a middle-of-the-road pop sensibility.

As intriguing as these one-man band experiments can be on Cerebral Hemispheres, Potillo loses his footing when he moves into the realm of straight-ahead jazz or blues. These genres require the feel, the raw emotion, of a flesh-and-blood rhythm section. “Sea Witch,” for instance, has the upbeat, post-bop structure of an early Herbie Hancock recording. But, despite Potillo’s nimble, bluesy touch at the keyboard, the stock Yamaha sound bed drains away much of that innate grit in a hail of mechanized cadence. Potillo’s erudite virtual orchestra can’t replace the risk-tasking interpretive joys associated with a real band. “Purple Corn and Fish” finds Potillo switching to a classic electric-piano sound, reminiscent of late-1960s soul brothers Billy Preston or Jimmy Smith.  But there’s not enough heat around him to get the required grease-popping groove going.
That’s easily fixed, however, with the addition of a few funky friends, or a tighter focus on the more ambient and contemporary genres where Cerebral Hemisphere finds its greatest successes.


Review by Nick DeRiso
Rating: 3 stars (out of 5)


No comments:

Post a Comment