Jimmy Eat World, Damage

Jimmy Eat World has been with us all for a while, alt rockers with songs a-plenty and enough of a rock edge to keep things going. Now we have their eighth studio effort in hand, Damage (RCA), and with it there is confirmation. They still have that something that makes you want to listen.

This one is a concept album, their "adult breakup" song set. Jangling power-pop-rock guitars, tight arrangements and heartfelt vocals are what you get. And most importantly the songs are strong.

Like REM, Jimmy Eat World show you that popularity need not be synonymous with puerility. The music reaches out from its balanced center and does so without pretense. It's what rock-for-the-everyman can be. It's not fringe and not supposed to be (for those who read this blog for the fringe music I cover). It's real, though. Real songwriting, strongly performed. That's it. That's good.

Jeffrey Hayden Shurdut, Global Time, 2007

This blog site, for those who don't know, covers a wide spectrum of things, some not typically of concern to a chops-axe-gearhead thing. All kinds of music is covered and some of it doesn't even especially center on guitar or bass, but instead might give you something that a musical mind would find interested and something to grow on in general. So be prepared for music of all sorts, rock, jazz, avant, songmeisters, even new age if it's something I can stand!

With that in mind I present to you today an Artist Promotional CD-R in the JaZt Tapes series, one of a number by musician-bandleader-avant-jazz-artist Jeffrey Hayden Shurdut, a live date from a pretty obscure club in New York, vintage 2007. It's a trio of Daniel Carter on trumpet, flute and tenor sax, Brian Osbourne on drums, and Jeffrey on electric guitar. This is free music, a totally improvised set of music where there is no set pulse, no set melodies, nothing harmonically prescribed, and no set routines that I can detect--and that's not unusual with Jeffrey but rather 99% the case.

Daniel Carter gets lots of space to get a solo stream of notes flowing (especially on tenor, which he is most known for) and he does that well, as one can rely upon him to do. Osbourne gets a counter flow of open-time drumming that forms an effective carpeting to Carter. Shurdut, who is more usually heard (literally so) on piano and sometimes reeds, provides sound color on the guitar in sparing ways. At times you may not hear him much if at all. It's the opposite of what a guitarist who wants to establish him or herself as an important player would do. It is utterly selfless. He is nearly invisible. But then Shurdut is a person who brings good players together and gets them to do great work, as I've noted today on a review of another of his CD-Rs on Gapplegate Music Review (see link to that site in top left-hand column).

And that's what's happening here. As a massive thunderstorm approaches as I write, I know I'd better get this posted now. It's good music but it's not something where the guitar stands out!

For more info on this and other JaZt Tapes go to http://www.janstrom.se/6.-recordings/6.3.-jazt-tapes-6267605

Dan Phillips BKK Trio, Bangkok Edge

Any CD that starts out with a nicely rhythmically displaced version of Sam Rivers' beautiful "Beatrice" will get my attention. And the Dan Phillips BKK Trio's Bangkok Edge (Music+) does that. Phillips plays electric guitar and apparently teaches at a University in Bangkok, Thailand. His trio of Chanutr Techatana-nan, drums, and Pornchart Viriyapark, bass, is solid and they are joined by tenorist Jakob Dinesen to make it a quartet for half the set.

Dinesen is certainly good but Phillips is the main draw here. He has a sophisticated chordal sense, hammers-on or straight-picks his way through some nice soloing. He's mainstream-hip without necessarily sounding like one particular player--so in that way he's got his own voice. And he bursts over with improvisational ideas so it is a most interesting set.

Along with "Beatrice" there are two originals and some choice jazz and songbook standards--"Wine and Roses," but also "A Flower is a Lovesome Thing" from Strayhorn (in a very interesting arrangement), a couple from Trane and Monk, etc. Changes are implied and stated mostly and the solos go well with them, to give you an idea of what's going on.

It's a feather in Dan Phillips's cap for sure. He's come through and it sounds good!

The Summarily Dismissed, To Each!

Some music belongs in more than one category. It gets beyond just one thing. The Summarily Dismissed is that. At least on their album To Each! (Self-Released CD). This is the music of singer-songwriter Ari Shagal. It's a group that has soul, r&b, songwriting, jazziness in equal proportions. The press sheet mentions Todd Rungren, Laura Nyro, Stevie Wonder, Donald Fagen--and that is some heavy company! But yes, there is something of their kind of songs going on. Ari arranged the songs for this fairly large combined band with horns and such, and did a great job there. There are several vocalists that take turns singing lead vocals and there are nice harmonies some of the time. Ferima Faye is excellent in the soprano register, Matthew Lomeo does a baritone thing and he's good, then Ari sings a bit too. Kenny Washington sings as guest as well.

Basically there is a core trio of guitar-bass-drums. Joe Davi plays some very nice guitar and produces.

The songs when very good are what kicks this thing out. And there are some excellent ones! Not every one is a total gem, but there are gems! And nothing is fill here.

Wow! Songs!!

Sean Moran Small Elephant Band, Tusk

The Sean Moran Small Elephant Band is probably not something you would be likely to read much about in the magazine Guitar Player. I could be wrong. Why that may be is that this is a band that puts music ahead of individual virtuosity per se. Their album Tusk (NCM East 40136) tells the tale. This is chamber jazz but not in some rote way. The music has composed elements that work to frame the improvisations in the best sense--in that everything melds together in a modern art kind of way so that each number has intricately planned elements and spontaneous extrusions that work together beautifully like a single abstract expressionist canvas by one of the greats of the visual art world of mid-last century. Who is it that composed these numbers? I cannot say because the CD does not. I will assume that Sean Moran is the composer? What matters for now is that these composition-arrangements are exceptional.

And the band? A judicious choice of sensitive improvisers that work hard to get a group sound, an ensemble vividness. There's Sean Moran, of course, on nylon stringed guitar. He's studied flamenco I read, but quite clearly classical and jazz guitar as well. He has a subtle way and if you listen closely to him throughout you get much to appreciate. Michael McGinnis adds a great deal on clarinet and bass clarinet. He has great sound, plays his part in the ensemble with flair, and can give you some very modern soloing. Chris Dingman on vibes is central to the sound. He does his ensemble thing with care and artistry and when called upon plays himself to perfection. Reuben Radding on contrabass sounds great and of course we've been covering his playing for some time here if you look back. He excels in the structured composed world of this music and takes fine advantage of the open spaces he gets to do things with. Harris Eisenstadt is a brainy sort of drummer with beautiful feel (and a composer of great worth too). What he does here is an object lesson on how you can swing and rock with full feeling and force yet get a chamber feel that balances everything well.

So this is an album of wholes--a very whole sound, players that contribute each to the whole in wondrously special ways--and that isn't something I would say about many similarly constructed groups. The compositions draw upon new music, modernity, freedom, avant music without going in predictable directions.

It's a guitar player's album, yes. But there is a selflessness in everybody's playing here, an attention to the total outcome that leads to exceptional music. Stunning!

Giant Dwarf, Rabbitwood

You listen to enough music, day-after-day, sooner or later a number of CDs kick themselves out from the bottom of the pile and say to you, "this is different. I have some music for you that goes a ways away from everything else you've been hearing." And if you cast with a wide net and not limit too much what you'll consider, just goodness as a rule of thumb, it happens more often than perhaps you'd expect.

It happened to me with the group Giant Dwarf and their CD Rabbitwood (Engine 2013). It's 16 pretty short numbers by the duo of Martin Philadelphy on electric guitar and Jeremy Carlstadt on drums. This is avant psychedelic-skronk-shred-surf-jeazzzzz of a pretty special sort. Mr. Philadelphy has a nice post-Rypdalian tork to his metallic soaring and he goes both in and out with a musicality not geared for adenoidal sludgeheads, whoever they might be. Jeremy Carlstedt plays some busy and hot drums, free and open and driving and responsive.

So leave it to Engine Records to come up with stuff like this. They often slip out this sort of release in their unassuming fashion, and you put it on--BANG! Nothing knee-jerk about this music.

You like weirdsville avant metal?? Man, you will love these guys. I think.

Uwe Gronau, Visions

I normally steer clear of new age music, here and elsewhere. It's gotten a bad name for mostly good reasons as the MOR of today, easy listening with not always much musical content.

But when something strikes me as worthwhile, I don't care what it is called. Uwe Gronau does good music. His new one, Visions (self-released), is a fine example. Uwe writes the music, plays all the keys and except for a nice guitar appearance by Pete Sayer and some soprano sax by Matthias Keidel, does it all.

And it's good. Before new age there was of course prog rock--and this music is like a kind of prog minus the vocal songs in many ways. Approach it without expectations and you may find you have a place for it in your eartime. It is NOT vapid! It does what it does and does it rather well. And it is expansive in its aural palette. OK?