BEFORE RAP, THERE WAS…Tony Adamo: Miles of Blu/ Review By JazzWeekly

Reviews BEFORE RAP, THERE WAS…Tony Adamo: Miles of Blu by George W. Harris • July 15, 2013 • 0 Comments You think rap (did I ever tell you the perfect radio station for it? K-RAP?) was the first music to offer the street scene? Forget it! Guys like Tony Adamo, and before him, Gil Scott-Heron tell BETTER stories, with a BETTER rhyme and with FAR BETTER musicians. Adamo on this disc celebrates the vibe, the attitude and the stars of the jazz scene on this disc with heavy hitters like Mike Clark/dr, Tim Ouimette/brass, Steve Homan/g and other cats with a rubber neck. His own tunes have a funky feel, and like the best street preachers, he tells the story like he means it. Homages to James Brown and Miles Davis sound right on the mark with Adamo dodging and ducking the lyrics like Floyd Patterson, and while the “America R We Free” tells me that Adamo could use a few economic books by Thomas Sowell, his streetwise readings of a couple Tower of Power tunes, particularly “Soul Vaccination” is a perfect update of a similar attitude. Random Act Records www.randamactrecords.com