As a solo artist and bandleader, guitarist Howard Roberts is probably best remembered as a jazz artist, because that was most often the musical focus of the albums that came out under his name. However, during Roberts’ busiest period for album releases (the 1960s on Capitol Records) the track lists show definite pop leanings, whether the LPs remained in jazz land or drifted into easy listening territory. His eclecticism makes sense, because even casual music listeners who don't know his name have certainly heard his guitar playing. Roberts is another one of the players involved with the Wrecking Crew, a group of Los Angeles session players who appeared, usually uncredited, on countless records and film and television soundtracks from the late 1950s and beyond, working in just about any genre you can name.
I haven't had the chance to hear many of Roberts' albums as a leader; the two that appear the most often are a pair of early Capitol sets, H.R. is a Dirty Guitar Player (one of very few of his albums to ever receive a latter-day reissue in a physical medium, by Sundazed subsidiary Euphoria Jazz) and Color Him Funky. Both are well worth checking into for anyone who likes small combo, guitar-led jazz. The other I've heard is Antelope Freeway, an early 1970s session for Impulse that heads into very different, somewhat uncategorizable territory.
Fans of The Firesign Theatre right now are probably wondering if the title is a reference to a joke on the comedy legends' 1969 album How Can You Be In Two Places At Once When You're Not Anywhere At All. Well, the group is listed first in the thanks section of the liner notes "for leadership qualities above and beyond." Another interesting credit is given to Joe Walsh, for "optimization of time-space energy transformations." And the album features Side 1 and Side 3. Okay, then. Along with those clues and others in the liner notes, plus the fact that the album is co-produced by Bill Szymczyk (Eagles, James Gang) with Impulse A&R head Ed Michel, it's a good guess that it is more rock-oriented than usual for Roberts.
Happily for this fan of psychedelic music, playing the record confirms what the cover art and notes point to: This is a seriously trippy album. While albums of its era by veteran players were often just dressed up to appeal to the youth market, Roberts and company were definitely not fooling around on Antelope Freeway. A couple minutes worth of Firesign Theatre-worthy sound collage to start the album gradually segues into a funky, rootsy rock instrumental, "That's America Fer Ya." Non-musical elements recur throughout to assist with and mark song transitions, as between the psych-ish raga-tinged "Dark Ominous Clouds" and heavy meltdown "De Blooz," which really lets Roberts get out there as it transitions among different time signatures and blues structures.
Kicking off "Side 3" is "The Ballad of Fazzio Needlepoint," which drifts along on keyboard washes and spiky guitar reminiscent of early Pink Floyd before morphing into a driving tempo rocker. That segues into the weirdest track, four minutes or so of a soundtrack of sleepy drivers looking for something on the radio. I'm guessing everything on the radio is either a past Szymczyk production or created for this album; they scan by a little bit of the A-side's "That's America Fer Ya" and eventually land on "Walk Away" by the James Gang, naturally. That leads into the spacy fusion track "Santa Clara River Bottom" before morphing into album-closer "Roadwork," which starts at an easygoing lope until drifting into full-tilt blast territory.
Overall, it's an album that proves cross-genre pollination actually can work. Roberts only created a few more of his own albums in the 1970s, incluging one more on Impulse, Equinox Express Elevator from 1975. I will be keeping an eye out for that one just in case it's another experimental opus like Antelope Freeway. It doesn't appear either of his Impulse albums ever made it to CD, but both are on Spotify. (Impulse/ABC AS-9207, 1971)
