Enrico Galetta | “48 Hour Odyssey”

Enrico Galetta
“48 Hour Odyssey”
www.enricogaletta.com

Italian born and Atlanta residing Enrico Galetta has come out of the gates swinging.     Fans of Adam Nitti & Victor should surely find bass-nuggets a plenty here!  Adam produced the effort and is an obvious strong influence on Enrico’s playing.  Enrico displays a bag of tricks and grooves that should inspire any bass-gymnast! (“L’illy Time” is pretty darn technically impressive!)  Actually, a transcription booklet of this CD would be a great release for disciples of the groove and those looking to advance their technical abilities.  Slapping chops a plenty, slick useage of tapping incorporated in the midst of a line (not just as it’s own flurry), clean and articulate tone and some well considered compositions fill the disc.

I must say, that this is very much a by bass players and for bass players album.  Even though the compositions are solid, each track has the kind of bass work that makes bass players think, “WOW…  this dude’s tight!” but makes band-leaders think “man, relax!  You’ll get your solo later in the set!”.  Having said that, I applaud Enrico for his tasty fretless work, supremely interesting grooves, tone and compositions.  A lot of work obviously went into this CD and it shows.

It’s a great disc…  my only complaint is that it sounds like he’s trying a tad too hard to impress with each track.  We may be better served musically if the focus was on the group, sound as a whole and over-all musical statement as opposed to the heroic bass player thing.

Don’t get me wrong, tho…  I think the same exact thing when I buy and listen to my bass heroes albums (and about 80% of the other bass-led CDs I check out)!!  48 Hour Odyssey is right up there with the best of them and Enrico is an incredibly skilled player.  This CD is quite an accomplishment.

I just feel like I’ve heard it before…