Dave Stryker
(guitar); Walter Smith III (tenor sax); Jared Gold (organ); McClenty Hunter
(drums); + Mayra Casales (percussion on two tracks).
Back in the olden days
(February 2020) this is the sort of album I would have played as a wake up on
my daily commutes, a bit of electric boogalooing up and down the A1. It still
carries enough heft to bring some light and life into lockdown.
Dave Stryker is not a name known to me though his history includes stints with Jack McDuff and Stanley Turrentine, (including sessions at times with Freddie Hubbard and Dizzy Gillespie) and he appears on Charenee Wade’s ‘Offering: A Tribute to Gil-Scott Heron and Brian Jackson’ which is a favourite in this reviewer’s house. His main focus since Turrentine died has been his organ trio with Gold and Hunter, augmented on this album by Walter Smith III. Smith is another firm favourite round here. He appeared with Michael Janisch in the Northern Rock Hall at the Sage a few years back and his 2018 album Twio is another that was high on the playlist in the car and in the small back room when it came out in 2018.
Track one, Tough, starts as an ensemble boogie with
all the band rocking away, a slow interlude allows WSIII to build a solo from
tentative notes to a series of fuller fatter tenor runs, Jared Gold’s solo on
organ is more full bodied from the off, with the drummer roaring and rolling in
the (not too far) background.
El
Camino, with Mayra Casales on additional percussion, is more
of a dance track with a long run from the leader who then hands the baton over
to WSIII, the space behind his solo filled with stabbing organ flourishes and
punchy drums, before Stryker comes back in with a needlepoint solo.
Dreamsong calls
to mind very early solitary mornings in closing bars and fluorescent lights on
wet city streets; you can almost see the pork pie hats. Cole Porter’s Everything I Love is equally romantic,
though this time there is someone else in the room as an object of affection.
Rush
Hour, a Jared Gold composition, does what it says on the
tin. It’s taken at a higher pace, organ and drums pushing the band along, along
with Gold grandstanding to keep the energy levels up.
Superstar,
a Leon Russell/Delaney & Bonnie Bramlett tune, is probably best known in
the UK from the Carpenters’ cover. It’s a laid back early 70s groove.
The title track is named
in memory of Stryker’s colleague, Professor David Baker, at the Indiana
University Music School; The Circle was the turning circle where Professor
Baker waited for his lift at the end of the day. The song is a mid-paced funky
roller with Hunter covering a lot of ground on drums. People with working feet
can dance to this; me, notsomuch.
Next there is a cover of
Marvin Gaye’s Inner City Blues.
Covers of this or of Mercy, Mercy, The
Ecology Song seem to be almost compulsory now. This is more pulsing urban
funk with slower passages to evoke the tragedy of the decay that Gaye witnessed
and led him to write the song.
Love
Dance is another accurate description; a laid back groove
for when lights are low, slow and spacious with Stryker soloing over Jared
Gold’s swirling organ. It sounds like the band are taking a breath and
conserving their energy for last track, Trouble
(No.2). It’s a cover of a song by Lloyd Price who first recorded Stagger Lee. It’s a boisterous swinging
strut an all-in, all cylinders firing romp to close with.
This is largely
energetic, good time music, and, if I ever go back to work, it
’s going in the
car with me.
Dave
S
Tough,
El Camino, Dreamsong, Everything I Love, Rush Hour, Superstar, Baker’s Circle,
Inner City Blues, Love Dance, Trouble (No. 2)
Baker’s Circle is
released on March 5 and will be available from all the usual suspects and from davestryker.com
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