Robben Ford & The Blue Line - Mystic Mile (1993)

Robben Ford & the Blue Line is an electric blues trio, but it's a trio whose leader and guitarist played with Miles Davis and Joni Mitchell, whose drummer Tom Brechtlein played with Chick Corea and Wayne Shorter, and whose bassist Roscoe Beck played with Leonard Cohen. In other words, this is a blues band with serious jazz and singer-songwriter ambitions. Not surprisingly, these former instrumental sidemen are a lot better at infecting the blues with harmonically sophisticated solos and tricky rhythms than they are at singing or songwriting on their album, Mystic Mile. Songs like "Busted Up" or "Moth to a Flame," both penned by Ford, don't offer much in the way of a lyric, melody, or vocal, but they do build a serious groove around a challenging syncopated figure, and Ford's guitar comes roaring out of the rhythm with solos that don't merely vamp on the chord changes but take those changes into new harmonic territory. Thus it's not surprising that the album's one instrumental, the uptempo blues workout "The Plunge," and the two cover songs, the Cream's "Politician" and B.B. King's "Worried Life Blues," are the highlights. --Geoffrey Himes