Kelly Joe Phelps: Slingshot Professionals

Slingshot Professionals
Kelly Joe Phelps
Ryko

With Slingshot Professionals, Kelly Joe Phelps moves away from the blues-based guitar histrionics that marked his earlier records and towards a more sedate, folkie style of presentation. And while the trademark sleepy strangeness of Phelps’s music is still largely intact (lyrically at least), overall, this record doesn’t quite work. His guitar playing is now primarily used as melodic accompaniment, instead of standing alone as a solo voice as in the past. Freed from the restraints of a blues song structure, he ventures into, but never really embraces, that sort of quiet energy that bands such as Willard Grant Conspiracy do so well. But where WGC’s music is unsettling and challenging without electricity, Phelps has sanded away almost all of his charming rough edges and left us with folk as background music. Even the presence of fellow fretman Bill Frisell or keyboardist Chris Gestrin don’t liven things up. While this is by no means a bad record, it is rather dull, and that’s the last thing we expected from Kelly Joe Phelps.

Originally published Ink 19, 2003

John Scofield

Überjam
John Scofield
Verve

Guitarist John Scofield knows funky. After playing with a range of artists from Miles Davis to Herbie Hancock, George Duke, and former P-Funk drummer Dennis Chambers, Scofield is qualified to name a record Überjam. Joined here by Avi Bortnick on rhythm guitar, Adam Deitch on drums and guest John Medeski (of Medeski Martin + Wood), the 11 tracks here bubble and twitch like great funk, with a healthy dose of sampling and even a rap. Scofield creates unique tone pictures and isn’t afraid to get dirty, sound-wise. On cuts such as “Tomorrow Land,” he adopts a slight Bill Frisell sound, where at other moments he shows he’s definitely listened to his share of John McLaughlin. And with titles such as “Acidhead” or “I Brake 4 Monster Booty,” you know this isn’t some grim, suit-and-tie jazz record. Nope, this is more along the lines of a rave played by jazzers. Not a bad mix, at least this go around.

Originally published Ink 19, 2002

Bill Frisell

Blues Dream
Bill Frisell
Nonesuch

Guitarist Bill Frisell can be best summed up with the southern adage “You just ain’t right!” In his 19-year career (which includes appearances on over 160 records) he has confounded conventional “wisdom” about the art of the guitar, and in doing so, has become a minor god in the cult of the six string.

Listening to his newest release, it’s easy to see why. The opening cut sounds much like the Dell pocket mysteries of the ‘50s looked: a dark, rainy street with a downtrodden vixen illuminated by lamplight, firing up a cigarette. Billy Drewes saxophone wails like a siren, and Frisell and steel wunderkind Greg Leisz enter with a creepy, Ry Cooder-ish blend of voices that is both pastoral and ominous.

Then we move off the city street and into the Texas prairie with “Pretty Flowers Were Made for Blooming” and the following cut “Pretty Stars Were Made to Shine”, which wouldn’t sound out of place coming from a the bandstand at western swing night down at the local roadhouse. Even in such a familiar context, Frisell finds unique and unexpected avenues of musical discussion. With the sliding, moaning backing of Leisz, Frisell has amble room in which to paint tonal pictures.

One has to tip the hat to Frisell for assembling such a responsive and talented group of musicians on the record. Of course Leisz is well known from just about every good “alt-country” release of the last decade, and he shines here. The horns of Ron Miles (trumpet), Curtis Fowlkes (trombone) and Drewes on saxophone mesh well with the laconic drumming of Kenny Wollesen and bassist David Piltch.

Blues Dream is one of those rare instrumental records that neither bores or infuriates. Frisell plays like a man who would like to be spending the afternoon either in a Louisiana swamp or the control room of the Kind of Blue sessions, and this record reflects both and everything in between. Which might not be right, but it sure is good.

Originally published popmatters.com, 2001

Jim White

Drill A Hole In That Substrate And Tell Me What You See
Jim White
Luaka Bop

Call it folk music from another planet, or perhaps redneck noir, but as inexact as those phrases are, they are as good as any for describing the music of Jim White. Eerie, fog-drenched and low-key, chock full of religious questioning and secular madness, White’s third album continues his odyssey into the underside of America. This time he’s assisted by a cast that includes Aimee Mann, Bill Frisell and Barenaked Ladies (on the energetic — well, for White, anyway — “Alabama Chrome”). The nearest musical comparison would be a southern Willard Grant Conspiracy, but White wraps his music in even more layers than do WGC. Layers that fall away on repeated listening, only to expose mysteries anew. Bizarre wordplay is the norm — take “If Jesus Drove a Motor Home”, for example — but he’s never odd just for the sake of being different. He strikes you as different because he simply looks at, and reacts to, the world in a unique and engaging manner, unlike any other performer today. Jim White will never embrace the mainstream, nor will it embrace him. Which all in all, is a good thing. He is rock and roll’s Hazel Motes, and Drill a Hole his street corner. Testify.

Originally published Ink 19, 2004