THE ODD DOGS - Beneath The Surface
Manasus Records
Andy Suzuki: keyboards, woodwinds; Jeff Miley: guitar; Steve Billiman: bass; Ralph Humphrey: drums; Billy Hulting: percussion.
Billiman, Humphrey and Miley teach at the Los Angeles College of Music in Pasadena. I mention this because this could easily have been the trio that made this recording, perhaps as a power trio. Certainly their shared experiences over their careers draws together jazz, fusion and prog-rock and there are hints in the themes and rhythmic developments in the pieces to indicate how the tunes may have been worked up in their original forms. With the introduction of Suzuki (who joined the band on his return from time in Europe), there are additional textures of sound not just on the many keyboard interventions he provides but also some richly developed saxophone, particularly on a track like ‘Hairpin’, track 4, which shifts between stuttering post-rock rhythms and a swinging jazz groove, or a more frenzied blow out on ‘Title 5’, track 5.
The opening of ‘Failure to Authenticate’ (track 2) , with its bass and drum figure that lopes around in 11/8 beneath a scrawling guitar line, and ‘The Beast’, track 7, a stumbling blues, both convey a strong sense of the prog roots of the players,. In the press release, track 8 ‘Monkish’ is described as ‘being played by a Zappa band channelling Theolonius Monk’. Not only is this an amusing proposition but it is not a bad description of the trio sound. But the music does more than recreate some solid prog-rock (even if it is played by masters of the genre) and has a deeply rooted appreciation of jazz idioms.
Reviewed by Chris Baber
Manasus Records
Andy Suzuki: keyboards, woodwinds; Jeff Miley: guitar; Steve Billiman: bass; Ralph Humphrey: drums; Billy Hulting: percussion.
Billiman, Humphrey and Miley teach at the Los Angeles College of Music in Pasadena. I mention this because this could easily have been the trio that made this recording, perhaps as a power trio. Certainly their shared experiences over their careers draws together jazz, fusion and prog-rock and there are hints in the themes and rhythmic developments in the pieces to indicate how the tunes may have been worked up in their original forms. With the introduction of Suzuki (who joined the band on his return from time in Europe), there are additional textures of sound not just on the many keyboard interventions he provides but also some richly developed saxophone, particularly on a track like ‘Hairpin’, track 4, which shifts between stuttering post-rock rhythms and a swinging jazz groove, or a more frenzied blow out on ‘Title 5’, track 5.
The opening of ‘Failure to Authenticate’ (track 2) , with its bass and drum figure that lopes around in 11/8 beneath a scrawling guitar line, and ‘The Beast’, track 7, a stumbling blues, both convey a strong sense of the prog roots of the players,. In the press release, track 8 ‘Monkish’ is described as ‘being played by a Zappa band channelling Theolonius Monk’. Not only is this an amusing proposition but it is not a bad description of the trio sound. But the music does more than recreate some solid prog-rock (even if it is played by masters of the genre) and has a deeply rooted appreciation of jazz idioms.
Reviewed by Chris Baber
