Product Review
Phil Collins is regularly thrashed in the press for playing it safe and churning out predictable dependable music for yuppies. He was once accused of being "a rich superstar whose music only sounded good in a BMW." On A Hot Night in Paris, Collins again jumps into the shallow end of the pool and comes up playing Le Jazz Hot, with a 20-member band including a Count Basie arranger and some old-timers he borrowed from Buddy Rich's band to augment his regular players. To his credit, Collins worked out to a video designed for jazz drummers to get in shape for the project, but his muscular timekeeping lacks the color and subtleties of players born to the art form. Also, there is very little of what he does best: singing. The only vocals on this album are a few grunts and moans during an almost-note-perfect rendering of the Average White Band's funk classic, "Pick up the Pieces," which almost rescues the album from banality. Thrown in for recognition value are instrumental renditions of some of his better known solo chart-toppers, such as "Sussudio," "I Don't Care Anymore," and "Against All Odds." But more surprising, the former Genesis skinbeater threw in four numbers from the rock band's extensive songbook, including a swing version of the eccentric "Los Endos Suite." The only thing missing from this CD, recorded live in Paris and Montreux, is the clinking of cocktail glasses. --Jaan Uhelszki

...Gene Krupa. Other reviewers have touched on the specific numbers collectively better than I could, so I'll just deal with Phil The Drummer here. I know friends who have always dissed the way Collins has used all four of his toms in a way that walks all over the backbeat as defined by his snare. I used to say; "Well, that's 'cause he's more of a jazz man than a rock drummer", but I went no further than that. Rock has always been backbeat-centered, so a drummer like Collins is always going to leave the rock listener a bit cold. But it wasn't until I bought this disc that I realized that the slam-boom beat of "I Don't Care Anymore" has always been more derivative of Gene Krupa (specifically "Sing, Sing, Sing") than any rock drummer. Not even the use of horns in songs like "It Don't Matter To Me" and Genesis' "Paperlate" tipped me off to the fact that this man should have done a big band album years ago. I'm not saying that he should abandon pop entirely, but the switch of Brian Setzer to swing, the fact that Lyle Lovett's Large Band has a solid following, and the fact that Chuck Mangione's brother Gap has converted from small ensemble to big band--all of this at least suggests that (at least at the moment) there's an appetite for the sound. Comment | Permalink | (Report this)