DOUG
WAMBLE
Bluestate
Marsalis
Music/Rounder
Doug Wamble’s second album as a leader,
Bluestate, captures an artist breaking completely
into his own voice. Wamble’s playing is joyous, humorous,
sharp, intelligent, and deeply felt. With Bluestate
Wamble joins a select group of adventurous guitarists
who work from the jazz mode and pull elements from other
styles of music as they like: Bill Frisell and Kurt Rosenwinkel
are two that come quickly to mind.
Besides for his impeccably tasteful guitar
work, Wamble also sings on a variety of tunes throughout
the CD. The opener, Wamble’s own “If I Live
to See the Day” makes commentary on the current American
political situation, with Wamble’s delivery at times
bringing to mind the acerbic Mose Allison. “Washing
of the Water,” a Peter Gabriel song from his Us album,
starts as an out of time gospel testimony, an approach that
Wamble credits to the inspiration of Keith Jarrett’s
Standards Trio. Wamble follows with a typically striking
guitar solo, then resumes his vocal work, with drummer Peter
Miles roaring and crashing like waves on the shore. Finally,
pianist Roy Dunlap unleashes a pianistic maelstrom that
brings the song to an emotional high.
Wamble doesn’t insist on singing all
the time, though, and that is one of this CD’s greatest
charms—it manages to feature Wamble as vocalist, guitarist,
and composer/arranger while making a convincing case that
all three roles are subservient to Wamble’s overall
delivery as a musician. That’s another way of saying
that Wamble is a servant of the songs he sings rather than
a musician who is determined to make a group of songs show
off his talents in their best light. The next two Wamble
instrumental pieces, “The Homewrecker Hump”
and “Antoine’s Pillow Rock” are fantastic
takes on instrumental subgenres. “Homewrecker”
has the feel of old cartoon music or a soundtrack from a
television spy program—the kind of things featured
on Bachelor Pad Music A-Go-Go compilations. In the middle
solo sections it morphs into a fairly traditional blues,
with Wamble working some genuine country and blugrass inflections
into the mix. That track morphs seamlessly into the slinky
bass line (courtesy of Jeff Hanley) and second-line drumming
that begins “Anotoine’s Pillow Rock.”
Wamble says the first version of the traditional
“Rockin’ Jerusalem” he ever heard was
sung by Mahalia Jackson. Wamble stays true to the gospel
roots, with a blues slide solo that truly rocks the house.
Then the group bursts exuberantly into a flat out swing
shuffle before bringing it home in the end like Ramsey Lewis
on steroids. Oh, yeah, there’s also a tenor solo from
producer Branford Marsalis that really smokes. On most CDs
that would be the highlight of this track, but despite the
fact that it’s great, it is still merely the icing
on an already tasty cake.
Roy Dunlap’s “One-Ninin’”
is the next track, a swing club meets modern jazz kind of
thing wherein Wamble and company approach the mannered swing
of Django Reinhardt (sort of) by way of the angular modernism
of Monk and Ornette Coleman. Then there’s “No
More Shrubs in Casablanca,” a genre-hopping experiment
in open improvisation that demonstrates how well this longtime
group (who have been playing together since college) can
read each other. A version of Stevie Wonder’s “Have
a Talk With God” that features Wamble’s slide
work and two more Wamble originals, “Gone Away”
and “Bear and the Toad” round out this excellent
collection.
Bluestate is an essential listen
for those who love blues, American roots music, jazz guitar,
and just plain good songwriting and musicianship. That’s
a widely cast net, but Wamble sounds like he wouldn’t
have it any other way.
