Lyle Workman – Uncommon Measures (Blue Canoe Records, 2021)
“Uncommon Measures” is a superb album by the immensely talented composer, guitarist and keyboardist Lyle Workman. Indeed, Workman masterfully combines elements of symphonic progressive rock, jazz-rock fusion and cinematic classical music.
Workman uses a wide range of electric and acoustic guitars, performed with dazzling skill and exquisite taste, ranging from delicate passages to stunning pitch bending and spectacular, creative shredding.
Notably, on this album Workman brought in a 63-piece orchestra conducted by John Ashton Thomas (Black Panther, Captain Marvel), recorded live at Abbey Road Studios.
I nearly missed this album, buried under a pile of dozens of downloads, and I’m sure glad I didn’t. This is a masterpiece.
Lyle Workman is best known as a highly reputable sideman and session musician. Moreover, he is a remarkable film composer. His credits including ‘Superbad,’ ‘The 40-Year-Old Virgin,’ and ‘Forgetting Sarah Marshall.’
“This record ties together all the different threads of who I am,” said Workman. “It was four years in the making due to my film and TV schedule, but it’s really the culmination of a lifetime in music.”
“Lyle Workman is a completely accomplished and inspired guitarist, musician and composer,” said guitar virtuoso Steve Vai. “He has a wicked command of the instrument and is perhaps one of three players I know of that can wield exotic orchestral compositions with either a screaming or whispering guitar. Uncommon Measures is the masterful evidence of this.”
Born in California, Lyle Workman appeared in the music scene in the mid-1980s, when he joined the Sacramento-based rock band Bourgeois Tagg. The group was signed by Island Records and earned international recognition for their hit single “I Don’t Mind At All,” a Workman co-write that helped earn performances on the Tonight Show, Top Of The Pops, American Bandstand, and their European equivalents.
The band served as a launching pad for Workman, who soon started playing at studio sessions and touring with Sting, Beck, Frank Black, Todd Rundgren, Norah Jones, Bryan Adams, and jazz icon Tony Williams, who included Workman’s “Machu Picchu” on his final album, Wilderness, with Stanley Clarke and Herbie Hancock.