Description
Born and raised in San Francisco, Rickey Kelly served a four-year stint in the Marine Corps during the Vietnam War before embarking on his musical career, inspired by Bobby Hutcherson (with whom he occasionally jammed). He enrolled at LA City College for its first-rate music programme (jazz singer Diane Reeves was a contemporary there). It was shortly after finishing at City College in 1974, that Kelly moved to Amsterdam, where there were more and more lucrative opportunities for a young jazz musician. Upon returning to the US Kelly released his first solo recording in 1979, the well-received My Kind of Music on the Los Angeles Phonograph Records label. But his chef d'oeuvre is Limited Stops Only released on Nimbus West in 1983. This superb-sounding Pure Pleasure reissue brims with propulsive, almost manic energy, exemplified by the opening ‘Distant Vibes’ (a Kelly original). Sometimes, Kelly and his splendidly simpatico quartet let up the pace a little, but things never flag. There are covers of Strayhorn's ‘Lush Life’, Herbie's ‘Dolphin Dance’, Kern's ‘Yesterdays’ and, inevitably, ‘Same Shame’ by his hero Hutcherson; but whatever material he tackles, Kelly's wonderfully crystalline, precise playing dominates, and never fails to satisfy or surprise. A mention is due too, for Komolafe's flute playing, which is powerful without ever becoming exaggerated; and the swinging, uptempo rhythm trio.
Shortly after this album's original release, Kelly left the music business to become a scuba diving teacher, but in between dives, he managed to surface for another album in 1995, Here's To Good People, an excellent quintet recording on Exodus. But Limited Stops is his great contribution to the music – kudos to Pure Pleasure for digging up this long-buried treasure.
180-gram vinyl
Remastering by Kevin Gray at Cohearent Audio
