Search - Slow Poke :: Redemption

Fast becoming one of my all-time favorites

Jan P. Dennis | Monument, CO USA | 11/06/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Man, sometimes I'm just an idiot. I've had this record, What? three or four years? And I'm just getting around to reviewing it now? Hello?Why didn't I just trust that Michael Blake (tenor sax, soprano sax, melodica, fingersnaps, handclaps), Tronzo (slide guitar, baritone guitar, dobro, wastebasket), Tony Scherr (bass guitar, dobro, guitar), and Kenny Wolleson (drums, percussion, samples)--some of my favorite players--wouldn't falter, would make fine music eminently worth listening to? Why did I have such wrong expectations?I don't know. But I do have an idea. I'd stumbled onto Michael Blake's Drift and Ben Allison's Medicine Wheel right around this time, and I expected More of the Same. I wasn't prepared to let this fine disc speak its own pecular magic to me. Bottom line, I wasn't attending.I wasn't tuned into its entirely sold-out, rootsy blooziness, most characteristically and brilliantly rendered in the Blind Willie Johnson classic, "God Don't Never Change."Let me tell you, I've caught the vibe now (wacked out late-nite blooze filtered thru some hip downtown sensibility), and I'm a convert, Hallelujah! Proof: Johnny Cash's "Redemption," here given the full Monty treatment with psychedelic Al Caiola guitar and full-bore Gene Ammons tenor sax undergirt by killer expressionistic drumming and ominous bass guitar.Come on, Intuition, let's hear some more from this fabulous band!"

A lost classic?

PH-50-NC | Southeast USA | 08/20/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I don't know how many copies of this album have sold, but I'm going to call it a lost classic of post-modern N.Y. jazz. The band strikes a great balance between edgy and catchy playing, and a lot of casual listeners who wouldn't make it through, say, a Masada album would have no trouble digesting this record.



Like groups like Medeski, Martin, and Wood or Steven Bernstein's Sex Mob, there are moments when the musicians get adventurous--look for "ugly beauty" as Thelonious Monk might say--but never to the point where they compromise the groove or break the spell. It's accessbile without being overtly commercial, and there is a lot of grit and soul in the playing.



Slow Poke features the Sex Mob rhythm section of Tony Scherr and Kenny Wollesen, and it also features electric slide guitarist Tronzo, who was in another Bernstein band, Spanish Fly. Michael Blake has played on Bernstein records including Diaspora Soul, so Steven Bernstein's influence is, I suppose, all over this record.



Michael Blake, like Berstein, is a big-picture musician who thinks in terms of soundscapes, and crafts deft arrangements that frame his (and his bandmates') improvisational talents. I don't know if Blake was the architect of Slow Poke's sound, or if it was a lucky combination of musicians sharing the same vision, but it all works beautifully here. It doesn't sound like an imitation of Sex Mob. It doesn't sound like a record of Knitting Factory alumns playing crazy music that quickly fades from memory. All the musicians seem to value 1.) the groove, and 2.) instrumental tone, more so than what's usually thought of as technique.' Rhythm and timbre play a big role here. It's a very bluesy record (but not a Blues record).



To make an outrageous comparison, it's like 'Kind of Blue' -- you can play it while you serve drinks to your friends, or you can listen to it through headphones in a darkened room and be transported into another space. Notes are carefully placed, and close listening is rewarded. I'd say this record and Steven Bernstein's 'Diaspora Soul' are two records that are no-brainers for use as gifts or as party soundtracks. Slow Poke is more moody than 'Diaspora Soul', but I never tire of either record and always get asked about them when I play them for others.



Let's hope Slow Poke returns to the studio for an encore."