Music Evolution
While he releases his straight-ahead jazz projects under his own name, Branford  Marsalis pursues his fusion experiments under the group name of Buckshot LeFonque,  even though he's the only consistent member from track to track. Marsalis and such jazz  colleagues as trumpeter Russell Gunn, keyboardist Joey Calderazzo, saxophonist David  Sanborn and bassist Ben Wolfe seem to be having great fun as they run changes over the  funk beat of  "James Brown," the hip-hop loops of "Try These On," the Latin-jazz heat of  "Jungle Groove" and the harder-than-hard-bop on the untitled, hidden bonus track. The  album stumbles, however, when it tries to come to terms with words, as it does on eight  of the 13 full-length numbers. There's some marvelous music in the background of these  songs--the rhythmic punch of hip-hop linked to the harmonic imagination of be-bop-but  it's hard to get past the awkward wordplay dominating the foreground.--Geoffrey Himes