Consumer Guide Album

Ronald Shannon Jackson: Decode Yourself [Island, 1985]
Believing correctly that what distinguishes Jackson's harmolodic fusion from Coleman's and Ulmer's isn't less musicality so much as no fun, Bill Laswell persuades him to beef up the themes and steady the beat. The upshot is the swinging "Software Shuffle" and other stuff. But it's also a record that tends to blare like regular old fusion, and it's not fun enough. B+