Fabrizio Sotti - Guitar. Peter Slavov - Bass. Francisco Mela - Drums.
(Review by Steve T)
Sotti has previously mixed genres working with a variety of artists including Ice T, Cassandra Wilson, Shaggy, Zucchero, Tupac, Whitney Houston, Randy Brecker, John Patitucci and Al Foster. For a little local colour he played with David Knopfler of Dire Straits.
The title of the new album from New Yorker, by way of Italy, indicates his age and a new beginning with a change of direction to a basic Jazz guitar, electric bass and drums trio featuring nine originals and a cover of the Antonio Carlos Jobin favourite How Insensitive.
It's a short album for these days, only just passing the forty minute mark by seconds - maybe another reason for the title - which is not necessarily a bad thing.
‘You’ll hear Wes, Jim Hall and Mike Stern ' he tells us and you wouldn't argue - I asked for a guitarist’s perspective and these were the three names that came back to me. 'But now it's me, my personality, my feelings, my way of playing.'
This he identifies as clear phrasing and not overplaying, though there's plenty of the latter; not that I personally mind; guitarists nowadays love to criticise excessive technique as a bad thing and then try to play as fast as they can.
For variety you'll get a minor blues in 3/4 on opener Redemption, more blues on Is that what you think?, lone nylon string guitar on Beginning Now, calypso on Thalia ( his daughters name ), a guitar/ bass duo on So Far So Close and, apparently, a reference to Bach on The Bridge.
The title track is the most interesting, alternating between funk rubato and straight ahead swinging giving a joyous playful quality.
Despite his prior claim, there's plenty of impressive finger work, and all three musicians acquit themselves well, and the album is fine but overall the feel is fairly low-key and probably only of real interest to guitarists and guitar trio enthusiasts - the aforementioned guitarist liked it rather more than I did - but they won't hear anything they haven't heard before, and much better.
As Lance said on a previous review, it's hard to imagine how this can compete for your hard earned cash with your wants list of classics by Mingus, Miles and Trane, or Christian, Wes and Metheny. And while the media and industry would have us believe that CDs, like the death of Bobby Ewing, were just a dream, with the choice between reassuringly expensive chunks of memorabilia you'll never play and downloading an album only to choose the selection which grabbed you on first play and compiling it on to some gadget with your other favourite songs, it's a sobering thought for any prospective Jazz musician who can count their audiences in dozens if they're lucky.
Steve T.
Release Date June 10 on Sotti Entertainment.
No comments :
Post a Comment