Jazz and technology have frequently mixed about as well as oil and water. As late as the mid-1960s, when the 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 Paul would 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.
Article comments