Provogue (label)
10 May 2010 (released)
10 May 2010
Two great Blues guitarists get together with ‘chums’ to play a commercial set that will move them both on a create a commercial success – sounds like a piece of typical music-biz BS, on paper at least. I’m often disappointed by stars who take an very enjoyable jam session and ‘develop’ it into an album that really doesn’t get past the first couple of listens – I would hazard a guess that most music collections possess two or three – but these guys really have formed something that is worth a few listens.
The end result of this pairing is a stunning set of Blues-Rock with more subtlety than expected – it’s actually a 1+1=3 situation where they not only DON’T cancel each other out but actually add to each others’ talents. I am suitably gobsmacked and not a little overjoyed.
The rhythm section here is about as tight as you are going to see with Jimmy Haslip & Gary Novak holding tight and driving the sound forwards but the playing of Ford and Landau is exquisite and in sharing the vocal duties they create a powerful new sound that is a combination of them both.
As you would expect of players that have performed with the likes of Joni Mitchell, Miles Davis, Phil Lesh, Tommy Bolin Chaka Khan and thousands of others, the playing is superb but my joy mainly comes from the subtlety of Ford’s playing on numbers like ‘Soft In Black Jeans’ crossing over the power and speed of Landau. ‘God And Rock & Roll’ has a raunchy feel to it as well as some fine guitar playing and when the get soulful and Bluesy as in ‘The Darkness’ they rip into your soul in classic Texas style. ‘Peace Intro’ giving way to ‘Peace’ shows that they can do more than just play rock & Blues and they set up an atmosphere with fusion touches that owes a great deal to their shared musical experiences.
They are obviously comfortable sharing the limelight and I never felt that they were trying to outdo each other so that the album derives its strength from ALL that they bring to the party.
Supergroup of the year for sure and there is enough spare steam here to keep them going for a while to come.
