Musicians: Russell Ferrante, keyboards; Jimmy Haslip, bass; Marc Russo, saxophones; William Kennedy, drums.

With: Alex Acuna, percussion; Steve Croes, Synclavier.



After the complexities of Four Corners, Politics is relaxed, even playful at times. (Witness "Oz" and the skittering "Tortoise & The Hare".) The mood turns pensive for "Galileo", which is a tribute to the late Jaco Pastorius. On this album, I notice a distinct corner being turned with "Helix" through the end of the album: the last four tracks are decidedly more acoustic. There's only a gentle synthesizer undercurrent on these songs, a style that anticipates the Yellowjackets' albums to follow. One track that gets a workout is "Local Hero". Beside its debut here, it also appeared on another artist's album with vocals under the same title, and also appeared on the Yellowjackets album Live Wires", with vocals written and sung by Michael Franks under the new title of "The Dream".