Electric Keys

opis:
multikulti.com, ocena: * * * * 1/2
Calvin Keys to jedna z legend amerykańskiego jazzu, jako niespełna dwudziestolatek trafił do zespołu Milesa Davisa, tam też odbiera od arcymistrza jazzu pierwsze jazzowe szlify. W tamtych czasach poznaje też Charliego Christiana, jednego z ojców gitary jazzowej, pozostając pod jego wpływem do dzisiaj, powiedział kiedyś w wywiadzie, że "do czasów Charliego Christian gitara była instrumentem akompaniującym, Christian uczynił gitarę instrumentem solowym".

Na przestrzeni lat współpracuje z innymi gigantami jazzu jak Donal Dyrd, Pharoah Sanders, Joe Henderson, Lou Donaldson, Carmen McRea, Jimmy Smith, Jimmy McGriff, Jck McDuff, Lonnie Smith, Ahmad Jamal, Ray Charles czy Woody Shaw. Wielkim fanem kunsztu Calvina Keysa jest Pat Metheny, który na jego cześć skomponował utwór zatytułowany "Calvin Keys", który trafił na płytę "Day Trip".

Płyta "Electric Keys" została wydana przez cenione wydawnictwo płytowe Wide Hive Records. W 1999 roku uznany w branży realizator i producent Gregory Howe założył z kolegami wydawnictwo płytowe połączone ze sceną koncertową, studiem nagraniowym i kawiarnią, takich miejsc w USA jest coraz więcej, wystarczy wspomnieć siedzibę Daptone Records na Brooklynie.
Wytwórnia konsekwentnie prezentuje progresywny jazz skojarzony z innymi gatunkami jak turntablism, downtempo i funk. W katalogu znajdziemy wielu uznanych muzyków jak Phil Ranelin, Calvin Keys, DJ Zeph, MC Azeem, DJ Quest, Harvey Mandel czy Larry Coryell.

Barwa jego instrumentu jest niezwykle wyrazista, a brzmienie naznaczone jest ostrością. Sięga po różne gatunki muzyczne od jazzu, soul, blues aż po reggae, czerpiąc inspirację z nowości i trendów panujących zarówno w muzyce popularnej, jak i w muzyce eksperymentalnej.

"Electric Keys" to uczta dla fanów otwartego jazzu, gatunku, który jak żaden może pomieścić tak różne wpływy. Muzykę zespołu można określić, jako energetyczny jazz, z elementami typowo amerykańskiego, muzycznego amalgamatu, jednak różnorodność dźwięków nie pozwala jednoznacznie zaszufladkować wypracowanego przez muzyków stylu. Sześcioosobowy skład jazzowych wyjadaczy, przeprowadza nas przez jazzowe pole minowe, co chwila napięcie dochodzi do zenitu, by nieoczekiwanie opaść, instrumentaliści dwoją się i troją ... a wszystko z niewymuszonym luzem i swobodą godną pozazdroszczenia, które przywodzą na myśl najlepsze momenty amerykańskiego jazz-soul.

Płyta "Electric Keys" dostępna jest na dwóch formatach:
standardowe CD i Vinyl 1LP
autor: Mateusz Matyjak

Editor's info:
Calvin Keys Jazz Legend releases his first solo record in 7 years. Known for touring and recording with Jazz Icons Amahad Jamal and Ray Charles, Calvin delivers electrifying performances throughout the entire album. Backed by the Wide Hive Players, songs range from full arranged beautiful compositions to trio pieces and finishes with an intricate solo guitar track track. 9 new compositions representing Calvin's soulful funky and blues sides and as as demonstrating his mastery of both jazz and guitar.

An all around a welcomed return to recording for Calvin and a great release for Wide Hive Records


vintageguitar.com
To some, Calvin Keys is already a legend, to far too many, he’s an unsung hero or, worse, an unknown.

In addition to being honored with Pat Metheny’s tribute “Calvin’s Keys,” on the composer/guitarist’s Day Trip album, in his 50-plus-year career Keys has toured with Eddie “Cleanhead” Vinson, Ray Charles, and six of the heaviest heavyweights of jazz organ (Jimmy McGriff, Jack McDuff, Lonnie Liston Smith, Groove Holmes, John Patton, and Jimmy Smith), and toured and recorded with pianist Ahmad Jamal among other jazz greats.

This is the 70-year-old’s first solo album in seven years and only his 10th since his ’71 solo debut, Shawn-Neeq. The title song from that album is reprised here (sans vocal), as is “Touch” (both penned by Keys), from the 2000 album of the same name.

The emphasis here is on deep grooves, bold textures (sax, trombone, bass, and two drummers), and Keys’ crystalline single-note lines, interspersed with warm octaves on his Heritage Golden Eagle archtop. It’s bluesy and funky, although on the title cut Keys shows a rockier edge.

Electric’s ensemble represents sixninths of the Wide Hive Players, whose latest, Turnstyle, also features Keys. Both are highly recommended.
By DAN FORTE


somethingelsereviews.com
There aren’t a whole lot of guitarists who can claim fitting in with big names as diverse as Ray Charles, Ahmad Jamal, Jimmy Smith and Bobby Hutcherson, but super sideman Calvin Keys has been there, done that. His playing style makes it easy to understand how he has been able to spend a five-decade career full of stints with just about any kind of jazz or soul heavyweight: rooted in jazz, Keys easily stretches across funk and blues without moving off that jazz center. His fluent, single-line vocabulary is a survivor of a lost art.

Whenever he has chosen to step forward from his backing musician role and take the reigns, he has impressed even more. That started with his 1971 debut Shawn-Neeq, a direct, unvarnished context for Keys’ understated sophistication as a performer, interpreter and songwriter.

These days, Keys has settled down into a solo career full-time, he’s been making records roughly every couple of years since 2000. Electric Keys, his third for Berkeley, CA-based Wide Hive Records, documents a seventy-year-old Keys who remains every bit as dynamic, diverse, and so damned tasty as he was when he dropped that underground fusion classic Shawn-Neeq on us some forty-two odd years ago.

As is the custom for Wide Hive recordings, the leader gets superb in-house backing from various members of the Wide Hive Players (as Keys’ contemporary Larry Coryell has gotten on his recent, excellent WH releases), and for Electric, they come in the form of bassist/pianist Matt Montgomery, trombone player Mike Rinta, saxophonist Doug Rowan and drummers Thomas McCree and Josh Jones.

This was the perfect setting to put Keys right back into 1971, and the horns are about the only thing that sonically separates his latest album from the earliest one, but it’s often a significant one, the horn arrangements add a Stax-like component that removes some of the jam tendencies of the debut in favor of a little more structure and melody. It remains as tough and loose, a credit to the balancing act producer Gregory Howe and the rest of the Wide Hive crew can wring from sessions executed much as it was done “back in the day.”

That old sentiment shines trough starting with the leadoff jazz-funk exercise, “You Know The Game,” as Keys’ old school guitar is a little remindful of the late Cornell Dupree, and he trades a few delectable licks with Rinta. Elmer Gibson’s “Love And Innocence” gets an all-acoustic backing, including the bass, but Keys’ genre-defying guitar, the song‘s looping figure and some pleasant horn touches pushes the song a little outside the straight jazz realm. On there and on “Rhubarb Jam,” Keys’ perfect sense of pocket adds an irresistible funk to these tunes. “Senior Moment” is a syncopated second-line riff played together by Keys, a flute and a sax. Keys breaks off and works the wah-wah pedal like the seasoned pro that he is.

Keys makes a couple of straight blues excursions with just the base trio, first with “Telegraph Blues,” a hard-nosed no-nonsense Chicago style blues. “The Hernia” is nearly identical, except that Keys adopts a tone with more acid in it. In both instances, he is attacking the form with the swagger of someone who has immersed himself in the stuff for a lifetime.

A couple of tunes are recycled from earlier Keys releases. “Shawn-Neeq” is a Keys original that is the title track from that old classic debut and with Montgomery again manning a standup bass for this waltz, it’s the jazziest tune of the set, highlighted by the song’s signature minor key descending bridge. “Touch,” taken from the 2000 album of the same name, is just Keys’ guitar, and his delicate touch and fine modulation probably does more to prove what a terrific guitarist he is than anything else on the album.

It’s often been said of even standout musicians who’ve been around a long time, that they don’t make records like they used to. That thought does not apply to Calvin Keys: if Electric Keys had been made during his career defining early 70s phase, it would have been heralded just as much as those records he actually did record during that time.

That doesn’t mean his new record can’t be heralded today, however.
BY S. VICTOR AARON


jambands.com, ocena: * * * *
Cool Bay Area indie label Wide Hive Records has cranked out over 30 albums since their formation in 1998, focused mainly on jazz and funk. For label founder/owner/producer/engineer/ and musician Gregory Howe (heck, he even shot the photos used for the covers of the albums we’re about to discuss), this has to represent some serious blood, sweat, and tears – but when you listen to the music coming out of Wide Hive, you have to figure that there are quite a few smiles tucked in there, as well. Two recent releases by the label feature the same basic pool of talent, collectively known as the Wide Hive Players. Along with Howe on B3, the Players consist of Matt Montgomery on keys and bass, Calvin Keys on guitar, saxophonist Doug Rowan, trombonist Mike Rinta, and drummers Thomas McCree and Josh Jones. Songwriting is principally handled by Howe and Montgomery with Keys contributing, as well. Listening to Turnstyle (credited to the Wide Hive Players) and Calvin Keys’_Electric Keys_, however, one gets the feeling that arrangements and charts could only take these players so far … the rest went down in the heat of the moment – and lucky for us, there was tape rolling when it did.Turnstyle begins with the slow sideways stagger of “All The Right Wrong Notes” – a piano-and-horn-propelled piece that never loses its footing (but playfully refuses to resolve itself, either). The following cut, however, is “Left Coast Sangria” – and all the opener’s rumpled-overcoat-clad lurches are quickly forgotten as breeze-off-the-bay rhythms and lovely Latin-flavored guitar work by Keys gather you up. The yin/yang of those two back-to-back cuts is a perfect example of the Wide Hive Players’ ability to shapeshift and work with the sonic canvas of the moment, just as they can pull off gentle near-psychedelia (ride out the wind-up of the title track – including the glide down the back side) or that fine, fine funky stuff (“Stained Glass Tribal Mask”).If you didn’t get enough of Matt Montgomery’s rubbery bass in “Winding Up”, you can burrow right back into it on the “Winding Dub” remix (credited to Jake Break and Kidd Grid), Rowan and Rinta blow wild and unfettered on “Stacking Wax”, “Changing Times” features cool rhythm change-ups that tell a story rather than interrupt it, the horns tend the fires while Keys goes off exploring on “Suddenly Overcast”, and “Where The Sidewalk Begins” takes things out with all hands shining: growling bass and a slick drum foundation keep things grooving while Keys scatters flurries of notes all over, under, and around the horns. (If you’re a sucker for sassy-assed horn, then Rinta’s break at about the :50 mark will be pure ‘bone porn for your ears.)All in all, Turnstyle is a neat sampler of what the Wide Hive gang is capable of doing. It’s obvious these are some talented players, comfy with themselves – and each other, blessed with the ability to make the listener just as comfortable. On Calvin Keys’ Electric Keys, the 70-year-old six-string master steps into the foreground of the Players’ lineup – but think of him as a player/coach who makes the whole team shine. “You Know The Game” leads things off with the band laying down an easy groove for Keys to work on, a gentle push on the chorus builds up to a nice soulslide back into the main theme each time ‘round. (Dig Keys’ trade-offs with Rinta’s trombone on the break.)Montgomery’s fat bass powers the angular spiral of “Love And Innocence” with Keys taking off on a solo run that scales the fretboard multiple times, punctuated by light-fingered almost mando-like descents. When Rowan’s breathy sax enters at the 5:29 mark, it manages to turn the song’s final two minutes into hipster caramel. The funky drum backbone of “Backyard” is interrupted periodically by a cool little call-to-arms figure by Keys, “Rhubarb Jam” is one big, thick, dollop of fun with Keys getting to pop, tickle, push, pull, and yank the strings as the band chugs on a groove (wait for the horn break at 1:19!), and whatever the inspiration was for the name of “Senior Moment”, the music itself is anything but – this is 6 minutes and 48 seconds’ worth of liquidy, sexy rumble-tumble with a big ol’ New Orleans-flavored hip sway.Keys can lay it down like Stevie Ray Vaughan if he so chooses (“Telegraph Blues” and “The Hernia” are stripped-to-the-bone Texas-style blues that feature just bass, drums, and guitar), he can sear both sides of a tune like an unleashed Mike Stern (the title track), and he can out-Benson George Benson (the lovely “Shawn-Neeq”). Throughout it all, however, he never resorts to mimic or cliché – what you hear is right-now, soul-to-fingers Calvin Keys – surrounded by a circle of talented friends.Right up to the album-closing “Touch”, that is: here we experience just Calvin Keys and his guitar, all sweet tone and perfect dynamics, beautifully captured in the moment.Here’s what I think: lay hands to both of these albums, put ‘em on back-to-back, and hit “play.” What you’ll have is close to an hour and a half’s worth of some fine, fine music.
by Brian Robbins


acousticmusic.com
It's about damn time we heard again from Calvin Keys. As far as I can discern, his last disc emerged in 2006 (Hand Made Portrait), and I've always regarded the guy as what John Tropea, Eric Gale, Phil Upchurch, Joe Beck, and others of the ilk should've been but weren't, even as cool as those cats were. Electric Keys transports us back to the time just after the Genius Era (Miles, Duke, Monk, Mingus, Kirk, etc.) and right about when disco was digging its claws in. That whole period's sound was so unique and saw such an array of interesting experimentation often only now coming into acceptance, but Keys' gift has forever been that he understands the mellow side of fusion without looking at the mercantiles. That's why I dig Passport, Joachim Kuhn, and all the gents and ensembles who worked just enough outside both the mainstream and the progressives to accommodate both.

And to Keys, the sound is everything. Catch Backyard to understand that, even though the entire CD is shot through with the same kind of intelligence. Sure, Calvin's guitar work is centermost, but it ain't by much, and the ostinato of the horns, the burbling bass, and the martial drumwork all blend perfectly for a vibe even now rare, the sort of thing that would have been contemporaneous with Brand X's Unorthodox Behavior. Be careful, though: I'm NOT comparing Keys to John Goodsall, not at all, you'd have to go to DiMeola for that (and C.K. does go crazy in the next song, Electric Keys, a killer rave-up), what I'm connoting is the set and tone of the composition. Keys and his band could've appeared at the Whiskey A Go Go in the 70s and mowed the crowd down. How do I know? Me and my pards practically lived at The Whiskey and would've turned ourselves inside out over this stuff.

Hiram Bullock got close to some of this material in his solo CDs, the instrumental cuts, but Keys maintains a prime profile for the entire 50 minutes, and those horns? Man, niiiiice! Not over the top, not recessed, instead confident, cool, and composed but insistent when need be. Great goddamned charts. I've never understood the public's obsession with Wah-Wah Watson, even when Zappa went gaga over him, and Keys demonstrates what all the cats of that era weren't quite getting right in every track here. That's why Ray Charles, Ahmad Jamal, Pharoah Sanders, Bobby Hutcherson, and a bevy of estimables (he was even on Bill Cosby's Badfoot Bill & The Bunions Marching Band!) gave him the vigorous nod for concert and recording work for decades.
by Mark S. Tucker


blog.musoscribe.com
Soul jazz is alive and well. With a sound that updates Wes Montgomery‘s fluid lines and combines that style with a head-nodding groove that will be familiar to fans of boogaloo revivalists such as The New Mastersounds and Soulive, Keys is in fact the real deal. Having cut his teeth as an able sideman to the likes of Ahmad Jamal and Jimmy Smith, Keys’ career releasing albums under his own name only began in earnest relatively recently, though 1997's Standard Keys was his fifth album, the previous four were released across a span of some sixteen years.

On Electric Keys, he’s backed by an able ensemble that bills itself elsewhere as The Wide Hive Players. Keys shares songwriting duties with his band mates, as well, but as is so often the case with jazz, the compositions are often frameworks – albeit tasty, inventive ones – for solo excursions. The warm, intimate ambience of the ten songs on Electric Keys is a constant, though the tunes themselves are varied lot. Melody is to the fore on tracks like “Love and Innocence,” wherein the horn charts sustain enough interest to carry the song. Keys’ sinewy guitar simply makes it even better.

When the group gets down to some funkiness (as on “Backyard”) it’s thanks in no small part to the hard-hitting drum work of either Thomas McCree or Josh Jones (the credits don’t make it clear who’s on which track). The band walks the fine line between complicated melody and straight-ahead funk, and the results will please aficionados of both approaches. Utility man Matt Montgomery is credited with songwriting, bass, piano and keys.

On the title track, the band plays with a fiery intensity not found elsewhere on this already fine disc, here Keys tears up and down the fretboard while the drummer – again, not sure which one – lays down an insistent, searing groove. The band is firing on all cylinders, those who dig rock but not-so-much jazz may find this the best entry point on the album. Echoes of Hendrix and McLaughlin can be heard, though Keys never loses his identity in the process. On “Telegraph Blues” and “The Hernia,” Keys breathes new life into the well-worn format, while the band does pretty much what you’d expect, Keys’ jazz-inflected runs expand the dimensions of the form. Best of all, with each at under four minutes, the tracks make sure not to wear out their welcome.

On “Senior Moment,” the horns go all exploratory, and Keys heads down the same knotty path. But the funky foundation – drums plus Montgomery’s assured bass – anchors it all in accessible territory. The disc wraps up with “Touch,” a gentle and beautiful solo spot from the guitarist.

Expertly fronted by Calvin Keys, these guys bring the boogaloo on Electric Keys, and never let it go. Recommended.