Sunny Side Records
2008
Banshees
About This Album
Scott DuBois is not your run-of-the-mill jazz guitarist. His thorny, diffuse, quick, hard-edged style is not reflective of any contemporary peer, save perhaps Jeff Parker, Hilmar Jensson, or Scott Fields. What DuBois does offer is a highly developed sense of harmonic acumen, a lithe and sinewy athletic tautness, and a brave attitude to play differently. Front-line partner Gebhard Ullmann is also a progressive, aggressive, thinking improviser whose tenor sax or bass clarinet inventions work well aside or apart from DuBois. This program of seven originals written by DuBois gives acknowledgement to both hard and free bop while retaining a vision of modern musical constructs from an American and European perspective. The foundation is internally or indirectly tuneful; far from phony or derivative; never bright, happy, or sugarcoated. All indicators of a new approach to jazz guitar are evident off the bat on "Mid to the West," introduced by slow and deliberate lines from DuBois and Ullmann, remaining that way while bassist Thomas Morgan and drummer Kresten Osgood churn up a juxtaposed boppish storm. DuBois conjures half-speed phrases à la Ornette Coleman with staccato accents and screeching stops during the hard bopper "Inverse," a perfect title for this obtuse piece.
Track List (try tracks 1,2,4 and 5)

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