Search - Jay Graydon :: Be Bop

Tight, but not too heady

Jamie Tatro | Columbia, SC United States | 11/04/2001

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Everyone on this CD plays bebop...except for Jay Graydon (guitar). The band is tight, the arrangements are well done, and the songs are "alternative melodies" to jazz standards (i.e., "(There Will Never Be) Another You" is re-titled "Oh Yes, There Will." Miles' "Four" is "4.2"). You'd probably have to be a bebop player yourself to understand my comment on Jay's playing: he "makes the changes," but he doesn't "play into and through" the chord changes. That is, he plays the "right notes" over the chord changes, but his phrasing doesn't anticipate the chords, nor do his lines always connect when key centers change. There are "quotes," and a few interesting melodic ideas in his playing, but he doesn't display the maturity and bebop vocabulary one would find in, say, Joe Cohn, Bruce Forman, or Tony Purrone. Then again, one suspects that Jay would readily admit he's not really a bebopper - the CD is a tribute to his late father, and a respectable tribute it is. And with Brandon Fields (sax) and Dave Weckl (drums), who could go wrong? Well worth repeated listenings, and well worth the (price)."