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JAZ-MOBI PROJECT REVIEWS
BLOG CRITICS.ORG
Jaz-mobi: A warm melting pot of Jazz guitar and electronics
Jazz and technology have frequently mixed about as well as oil and water. As late as the mid-1960s, whenthe Beatles were in the studio layering the multiple overdubs and effects that would become Sgt. Pepper, overdubs on a jazz record were a rare commodity. By the late 1960s, Miles Davis, working with Teo Macero, changed much of that, using a rock-inspired collage method of editing that made William Burroughs’ literary cut-ups look like child’s play. Similarly, jazz and guitar have also had shared a rough co-existence. Charlie Christian introduced the electrically amplified guitar to millions via his early 1940s work with Benny Goodman’s big band. And in his off-hours, he jammed with Dizzy Gillespie and other founding fathers of bebop. And while Les Paulwould probably call himself a jazz guitarist, ironically, his enormous popularity as a pop artist in the 1950s meant that for many, he wasn’t taken seriously as a musician. (George Benson would experience a similar fate in the 1970s.) But few of bebop’s heavy hitters had guitarists in their bands, until Miles Davis gave John McLaughlin a call in the late 1960s.
Between them, the two men practically invented jazz-rock fusion. And after leaving Miles’ orbit in the early ’70s, McLaughlin would spend the next 15 years or so experimenting with an enormous variety of styles. Each of these groups were documented with pristine multi-tracked recordings, demonstrating that McLaughlin was one of the few jazz artists who had a firm hand in both his music and technology.
McLaughlin’s echoes are all over The Jaz-Mobi Project, a new recording featuring a small ensemble led by Boston-based guitarist Steve Thomas. What’s Does It Sound Like? Perhaps to prepare the listener for the experimentation to come, the first two tracks on the CD are a bit subdued. They feature traditional, warm jazz guitar dueting with a sax, in a clean, well-mixed sound with a surprisingly wide stereo spread. Track three, “Looking Up”, features, breezy, George Benson-ish guitar tones and melodies over what sounds to me like looped percussion. The tune’s bridge features Thomas playing Pat Metheny-like digitally delayed tones on his clean, warm electric guitar. It’s on track four that things begin to really get interesting, sonically speaking. On “Breeze On A Bay”, Thomas and crew take off to India, in a track whose combination of tabla drums and acoustic guitars is very reminiscent of John McLaughlin’s mid-1970s pioneering jazz-raga fusion with the group Shakti, but with a much more accessible melody than McLaughlin’s modal mazes.
An alto sax solo gives way to a complex synthesized tone, reminiscent of some of Steve Winwood’s keyboard solos of his Arc of a Diver period. It could very well be Thomas on a guitar synth, of course! Track seven, “Way-farther”, begins with rain and wind loops for its opening, which give way to nice acoustic and clean electric guitar. There’s a nice analog guitar-synth sound, very reminiscent of some of McLaughlin’s work in the early-1980s, when he fronted a band whose keyboard player was armed with an early Synclavier synthesizer. The second to last track, “Babes In Toyland” is just that, as Thomas and his ensemble weave acoustic and digitally delayed electric guitars through a maze of digital effects.
Then there are echoes of some of Jimmy Page’s raga-rock (think “White Summer” and “Black Mountain Side”), until the track culminates in samples of children’s voices and another guitar-synth patch. Music That Ingratiates With Its Listener I’ve made several comparisons to John McLaughlin in this review. But it’s unfair to say that Thomas is strictly a McLaughlin clone. For one thing, Thomas’s playing is more eclectic–if only because he doesn’t need to prove, as McLaughlin seemingly must on every CD, that he can fit 72,392 notes into a single bar of music. Jaz-Mobi’s music ingratiates itself with the listener. And any jazz CD that combines great guitar playing, accessible melodies and rich digital recording strategies is a rare thing, and The Jaz-Mobi Project’s CD is well-worth checking out for that very reason. Its subtle layers of sound may need a few listens to fully reveal themselves to you. But that’s OK–this is a CD that holds up quite nicely to repeated playing.
IMPROVIJAZZATION NATION rotcodzzaj.com
Issue # 65 REVIEWS
THE JAZ-MOBI PROJECT: Guitarist/composer Steve Thomas leads a whole host (like, a mob, mebbe’?) of players for this rockin’ & boppin’ CD project. The one thing that will strike you (around the 2nd or 3rd listen) is that though the riffs are somewhat “familiar”, Thomas & crew have arranged them so that they’re “different” than you’ve ever heard…. fused jazz blues, old-style be-boppin’ bangups & high-end percussive tunes that will make your ears soar in ways they never quite imagined before. I definitely would recommend headphones on the first listen, so you’ll be zoomed in, & totally without distraction, because this is not going to be something you can “anticipate”. The group is highly talented, but seeking new directions for their energies…. you’ll be pleasantly surprised, & (I predict) will fall in love with this album by the second go-round. This is a unique album, one you won’t soon forget, & will be proud to have in yourcollection. I enjoyed the music thoroughly, & it gets a HIGHLY RECOMMENDED from us, especially for jazz listeners who want to taste aural treats with an aura of excitement about them.Rotcod Zzaj
I
OSPLACEJAZZ.ORG
O’s Notes: Guitarist Steve Thomas is the adventurous type, a composer that takes the unexpected turn with his songs. The melodies are typically single note guitar sometimes shadowed by sax. The set starts off swinging but half way through the second cut, they break into a sultry blues and the fun begins! “Looking Up” is more contemporary cool followed by “Breeze on a Bay” with its mild Latin beats. By this point we’ve given up on type casting Thomas with his vast array of interests. This project, his 2nd release as a leader is a sophisticated contemporary session.
D. Oscar Groomes
BOSTON GLOBE
“Thomas’s stuff blends nouveau-bop, blues and world music into a uniquely peppy,poppy fusion sound.”
Bill Beuttler
JAZZ NOW
A really nice CD with some manifestations of Passport-itis. You may recall how in the 1970s and 1980s we got to know the thinking person’s hyperpop-Jazz German quartet Passport through their highly varied LPs on Atlantic Records. Seems the band never landed completely in any one style: Zappa-like 12-tone melodic extensions, pop fluff, high-octane workouts, a smidge of free playing, and some Coltrane-like ballads. And sometimes, all of the above simultaneously.
Some critics huffed at the lack of cogency but I say if you’re good at a lot of things, ‘focus’ is an overrated attribute. Witness Jaz-Mobi Project, a floating collective of 7 to 9 musicians (depending on what track you’re listening to) largely under the aegis of guitarist Steve Thomas (good taste in instruments there; he’s got an Epiphone hollow-body!), employing tabla-powered Easternmusk-fests with a Pat Metheny-like tune-around late in the melodic structure (“Breeze on a Bay,” in long and radio-friendly versions), stamping blueses (“Kylies’ I and II”), meditative acoustic run-throughs (“The Gift,” “Ponder”), even an instrumental worthy in its soulful strut of Ray Parker and Raydio (“Looking Up”).
Yeah, not the most innovative music you’ll ever hear but comfortable with lots of pleasant surprises anyway. Dan Abrue appends a chubby, good-natured tenor sax here and there, synth envelopes drift open and trail off to good use courtesy of Thomas, Joey P. and Dale Ramsey, and the entire enterprise comes to a near-close on a questing, almost flamenco-like multitracked tour de force called “The Journey.” The reprise of “Breeze on a Bay” does underline the delicious combination of South Asian percussive structures with a sunny Brazilian melody. Like I said, small pleasures but numerous, and proof that Passport-itis still isn’t fatal.
- Kenneth Egbert
ALL MUSIC PROJECT
As always, I looked on the CD cover, saw a blue-brown art design that reminded me of land and sky, beautiful nature that is around us. The title is ‘Jaz-Mobi Project’ and on CD a stunning, professional blues. Steve Thomas is not just a musician with talent, but also artist with great skills that gives his music artistic, stunning splash.
In Steve’s compositions you will hear instruments as guitar, bass, keyboard, drums, sax and e-wi etc; talking to themselves, whispering simple questions of life and even if you don’t know the answers they will make sure to show it to you through building small pieces of images into one. Steve’s music is definitely wealthy in all ways of music and art, combining vivid images and abstract forms to build a visualization of a larger picture that will stick with you.
Steve’s music will keep you on your toes till the end with surprises, turn, and the unbelievable will become believable.Definitely each and every song will make you visual many different pictures of lines and unknown shapes, and you will build your own images of what you see in a distance, what will become your future. Take a ‘Journey’ with Steve; build beautiful images with him, through a perfect, powerful, unpredictable, and full of surprises and detours. And there is more tunes and surprises on Steve’s CD ’Jaz-Mobi Project’, which is a must for you to hear and experience the blues licks as you never did before. Your knowledge for music will not just expand for a thing or two, but definitely for ideal art music. You can get his CD on amazon.com
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