Lost Gem – Frank McComb and Buckshot Lefonque give us “Another Day”
It was a day I’ll not soon forget, the first time I heard singer-songwriter and keyboardist extraordinaire Frank McComb sing.
Picture it, a lean, 22 year-old crate digger, frustratingly pouring through the used CD bins at Kemp Mill’s flagship store on L Street, in downtown Washington, D.C., for a deal on something rare and wonderful to boast about to friends and neighbors. Then it happened. From the second his melancholic baritone brushed my ear from the overhead speakers, I completely froze, transfixed by its creamy flow against a moving, jazzy soul production that evoked a train cinematically rolling through a brown, rain soaked landscape. Standing in the middle of the aisle, I listened to the whole Branford Marsalis production for “Another Day,” before the song finally released me from its vise grip with its closing saxophone swoons.
Lost Gem – Frank McComb and Buckshot Lefonque give us “Another Day”
It was a day I’ll not soon forget, the first time I heard singer-songwriter and keyboardist extraordinaire Frank McComb sing.
Picture it, a lean, 22 year-old crate digger, frustratingly pouring through the used CD bins at Kemp Mill’s flagship store on L Street, in downtown Washington, D.C., for a deal on something rare and wonderful to boast about to friends and neighbors. Then it happened. From the second his melancholic baritone brushed my ear from the overhead speakers, I completely froze, transfixed by its creamy flow against a moving, jazzy soul production that evoked a train cinematically rolling through a brown, rain soaked landscape. Standing in the middle of the aisle, I listened to the whole Branford Marsalis production for “Another Day,” before the song finally released me from its vise grip with its closing saxophone swoons.
Breaking into a cold sweat, I immediately raced to the front counter, demanding to know “where they'd gotten an unreleased Donny Hathaway track?” LOL! Once corrected by the news of Marsalis’s experimental hybrid jazz-funk-soul project under the moniker Buckshot Lefonque, featuring the voice of one then-young Mr. Frank McComb, I bought both this sophomore CD and the short-lived band's self-titled debut on the spot just because McComb had one song on Buckshot Lefonque too (mind you, this was when you had to buy an $18 album for the one song you wanted). Of course, after hearing the song that would rule the WHUR airwaves for the rest of 1997, I wanted EVERYTHING available by this mysterious Donny Hathaway doppelgänger on the spot. For the next few months, when I wasn’t searching for his unreleased MoJazz album (save for an instrumental of Hathaway’s “This Christmas”), I almost exclusively played Frank's three solo performances ("Another Day," "Better Than I Am," and "Phoenix") on Buckshot Lefonque’s Music Evolution until I'd memorized every phrase, note, and lyric. I don’t know if I can tell you anything else from the album, but those three songs are some of the most perfect and memorable in Frank McComb’s long and esteemed catalog to this day.
And now, at a smooth 42, I can't believe it's the 20th anniversary of this album and the song that marked the first time I fell in love with Frank McComb’s voice; both only getting better with time.
By L. Michael Gipson
SoulTracks wants to know what was your first time you heard Frank McComb’s gifts? Soundoff in the comments below!