(Reviews by Steve T)
Rising Tide
Frank Kohl (guitar), Steve LaSpina (bass), Tommy Kohl (piano), Jon Doty
(drums).
This is Kohl’s fourth album, the first being in 1981. He's a native of
New York, where these sessions come from, but is generally based in
Seattle. From the Beatles in the sixties his training and tastes progressed
through Clapton, Hendrix and the blues to Wes Montgomery with Jimmy Smith, Pat
Martino and Jim Hall, but it was seeing Tony Williams' Lifetime with Larry
Young and John McLaughlin that made him realise anything was possible in Jazz.
Kohl studied at Berklee during its guitar golden age, while Schofield
and Metheny were still students.
The album features eight tracks, including five originals, a live
version of Rodgers and Hart’s My Romance and two by Victor
Young, including a solo guitar piece to close the album.
Nothing much else to say except the songs are fine and the playing is
excellent and the notes claim that smooth exteriors and
genuinely emotional interiors make for a difficult balance and listeners
will decide whether he pulls this off. I think he probably does but my heckles
don't automatically burst through my clothes when I read the 'S' word.
More Light
Sandro Zerafa (guitar), Yonathan Avishai (piano),
Yoni Zelnik (bass), Lukmil Perez-Herrera (drums), David Prez (tenor sax).
Also a fourth album, Zerafa’s a native of Malta but now in Paris and
he's absorbed Wes Montgomery, Jim Hall, Grant Green and Peter Bernstein. It's a
multi-national band from Israel, Cuba and France and there's a slight, subtle
Brazilian flavour running through for the many people this appeals to nowadays.
The album features nine originals with added bonus of sax on three of
them, which elevates it above the Kohl album but, without which I doubt I could
separate them in a blindfold test.
The songs are fine and the playing is excellent and the notes
claim a certain contemporary cool, far removed from frenzy and fury,
but to these ears it may have benefitted from a little F and
F.
Lance, I gather, was impressed by Zerafa’s previous album.
A Future of Music.
We often speculate whether music will stand up to repeated listening,
but maybe we're approaching it all wrong.
Go back a generation and most people watched films once but played
albums incessantly until the fillers made as much sense as the hits. Go back
another and most people only knew the hits.
Nowadays it's common for people to watch films over and over again so
maybe it's okay to listen to albums a couple of times, maybe pull of a couple
of key tracks or come back to it in the future, and then move on to the next
album, while retaining the genuinely great albums.
Steve T.
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