JON CLEARY
Pin Your Spin

Basin Street Records

Despite being a U.K. native, Cleary has been a New Orleans resident and musical fixture for years, and his music seems to spring from the Dixie soil. That southern soul is on display on Pin Your Spin, Cleary’s second CD for NOLA-based Basin Street Records.

Cleary hooks many listeners with his ability to put a subtle but distinctly modern spin on traditional New Orleans musical styles. For example, the street corner a capella of “Best Ain’t Good Enuff” tips its hat to classic doo-wop and Motown yet is performed with a contemporary edge. “Zulu Strut” features Cleary’s calypso piano underscored by the heavy African percussion rhythms of guest drummer Jamal Batiste. Again, the result is familiar yet not at all clichéd.

Sometimes Cleary and the Gentlemen don’t mess too much with the basic recipe, yet still manage to add just the right twist to the mix, as on the title track, where 70s clavinet bass is tempered by bright guitar chords, or the Latin-tinged “Oh No No No,” where Cleary compliments his good-humored vocals with rococo piano work that pays homage to the long tradition of New Orleans piano greats.

Jon Cleary has mastered the ability to play musical styles from all of New Orleans’ fabled past with authority, and he possesses the rare ability to synthesize those separate forms into a perfect amalgam. That is the real source of this CD’s success: whether playing the dirty Parliament-inspired rock/funk of “Funky Monky Biznis” or delivering a soul ballad like “Smile In a While” Jon Cleary delivers party music that appeals to the heart and the ear as well as to the booty.