JASON SMITH

 

Aficionados of Jazz come in all forms.  Some Jazz listeners want Be-Bop.  Others want ’50 Modern Jazz.  Some lean towards ‘60s post-bop.  Some are fusion-heads.  Jason Smith’s Think Like This is a Jazz record of cross-pollination; a record that easily could appeal to several different types of Jazz listeners.  On one hand, Think Like This is emblematic of a classic, early ‘60s Blue Note or Verve release.  In another light, it’s perfectly at home in a late ‘60s/early ‘70s Jazz-Rock/Fusion fan’s record collection.  Add some modernity a la late ‘80s/early ‘90s Don Grolnick advancement, and you’ve got something of an accurate description of the Jazz that Jason Smith and company perform on Think Like This.

 

Consisting of leader Jason Smith (drums), Dave Carpenter (acoustic bass), and Gary Husband (piano/Fender Rhodes, Moog), the trio on Think Like This traverses the topography of Jazz with an unlimited scope of its many eras and qualities on a sheer emotional level, utilizing the best of what’s available from the ‘50s, ‘60s, ‘70s, and ’80s, fusing it into an original representation of the genre.  Classic.  Original.  Passionate.  

 

Think Like This features five Jason Smith originals, one cover version of the Kern/Fields standard, “The Way You Look Tonight,” one cover of Keith Jarrett’s “The Magician In You,” one cover of Herbie Hancock’s classic post-bop masterpiece “Dolphin Dance,” and “Three Lies,” a composition by keyboardist Gary Husband.

 

If you want to think of Think Like This in the context of early to mid-‘60s post-bop Jazz, be our guest.  But that’s selling short a disc that avoids the inaccessible eccentricities by well-known artists of that era.  If you’re a classic Rock fan that wants to get into Jazz, but is often thwarted by the sometimes overly complex idiom, look no further than the opening track on the disc, “Gnu York.”  With the steady, rhythmically accented impact of drummer Smith and bassist Dave Carpenter, “Gnu York” modernizes an otherwise classic, slightly over mid-century Jazz sound with a combination of Gary Husband’s layered keyboards and an approach to harmony that shifts back and forth between altered harmonic colors and that of thematic sections disciplined with static harmony, where the root stays put and alternating chordal sequences shift back and forth over that static root in much the same way you might expect from the catchiness of a favored Rock album held in high regard.  In fact, “Gnu York” has something of a Jazz meets progressive-Rock edge, but without the self-indulgence.  Instead, Smith and company exhibit a dedication to beauty, dynamic, and feeling.  Smith, Carpenter, and Husband have all the musical sophistication of any great Jazz artist, and without the insular, Jazz-only bent that other musicians of the style with limited tastes might reveal in the same context.

 

Smith has the subtle touch and dynamic of a consummate Jazz drummer that a strictly Rock drummer could never achieve.  The feeling, though, is in his patterns, accents, and sense of restraint.  A listener wants rhythmic consistency their ears can savor for a moment.  Smith delivers on that desire, never changing too soon, and yet never staying in one place too long, either, where another drummer might run the risk of stagnancy.  Bassist Dave Carpenter, for his part, loves to maximize the resonance his instrument can sustain.  He takes advantage of it without the end result seeming “muddy,” doing so by interchanging that approach with notes hitting on the beats like drops of hard water.  If you could see color within a drop of H2O and hear it at the same time, you’d have an accurate representation of Carpenter’s bass playing.  Keyboardist Husband is a different being altogether.  He may only utilize piano, Fender Rhodes electric piano, and a Moog on Think Like This, but the arrangements of his keyboards lend a whole other vibe to the album on occasion.  Husband’s playing on “Halcyon” has all the harmonic sophistication you might expect from a Jazz pianist, but his choices allow him to stay just enough inside to let the listener feel the music.  On the latter part of the cut, one hears what might easily be mistaken for a recorder or other modified wind instrument, but it could only be Husband on the monophonic Moog.  The Moog is a primitive synth most often identified with early ‘70s prog-Rock, evoking aural visions of a certain, by now almost cliché, timbre; but Husband gets an entirely different tonal inflection out of the instrument.

 

 

Think Like This knows no stylistic prejudice, no snobbery, no over-intellectualization, no sacrifice of higher self, and at the same time, no compromise of the groundedness necessary for the artist to stay real.  Jazz.  Rock.  Fusion.  Whatever.  It’s music.  Newer, advanced, modern music with real feeling does exist.

 

Currently, Jason Smith is also the drummer of new pop/rock artist Kelly Sweet. Sweet records for the Razor & Tie record label.

 

 

-- Greg Debonne