A 24 year guarantee

While listening to a discussion about the late jazz-fusion guitarist Allan Holdsworth's latter years, when he really wasn't well, I was reminded that he was once in Level 42, on their Guaranteed album from 1991.  I found this second-hand copy the other day for the price of half a cup of coffee (I think the booklet is wearing the other half) and have given it a couple of whirls.

It's definitely not the fresh-faced, energetic jazz-funk Level 42, it's the more polished, more songwritey, more jazz-pop-big band style that the current version of Level 42 has adopted, with a surprisingly moody and perhaps introspective vibe, and you have Mark King thumping away, but much more in the background: a lot of the time you can't quite tell if it's his bass guitar or synth bass.  He does play some great fretless on a couple of songs though.

But in my opinion, the album is all about Gary Husband (on drums, and a lot of keyboards, and a bit of songwriting…nice).  He brought Holdsworth into the band, ostensibly to replace the late Alan Murphy but also to try to help Holdsworth himself.  AH plays on only five songs, but his contributions are unmistakeable: his buttery smooth, warbling tone, bursts of speed, and his harmonic cleverness and sheer unusualness really elevated the band's more conventional progressions, live and in the studio.  It's a real shame he didn't play longer in the band, other than a run of shows on the preceding tour, but Jakko Jakszyk came in to help promote and tour the album; they had the cheek to put him on the front cover, while Holdsworth was pictured in the booklet.

On a first listen I thought the album as a whole was kind of unremarkable and maybe a bit plodding, being so used to early Level 42, but it's so much more refined with some lovely musical statements that I think it'll grow on me a lot.