Robert Hurst
Unrehurst Volume 2
Bebob Records
www.roberthurst.com

Robert Hurst
Bob Ya Head
Bebob Records
www.roberthurst.com
By George W. Harris

Bassist Robert Hurst has made a name for himself playing with such unknowns as Tony Williams, Harry Connick Jr. and Wynton Marsalis before getting a gig with the Tonight Show Band for a number of years. Not a bad career at all, except for the dearth of recorded material under his own name. That’s changed here, with a pair of divergent discs that make up for 10 years of silence.

Unrehurst teams the bassist with Robert Glasper/p and Chris Dave /dr caught in a concert at Smoke’s Club in NYC. The band shows it’s bop/mainstream chops on tunes like Cole Porter’s “I Love You” and on an intriguing take of “Monk’s Dream.” Everyone gets a chance to stretch out…A LOT.. with most of the songs clocking in between 12-17 minutes, it being your call whether this is considered an exciting display of chops or a mind wandering period of self indulgence. One mans passion….

On the opposite musical end of the spectrum, Bob Ya Head is rich in multiple textures of percussion and keyboards as a foundation for Marcus Belgrave/tp and Vincent Bowns/ts. The music mixes sermonettes with snippets of speeches from Presidents Bush and Obama, mostly reflecting the optimism of Obama’s election. Songs like “Obama’s Victory Dance” while musically infectious, were obviously recorded before the realization of Chicago Politics creating a scene of “make way for the new boss; same as the old boss.” The mix of Hurst’s electronic and acoustic bass with these multi-cultural sounds and grooves is a pleasure to behold, however, and transcends party politics.