Over a
four-decade career, there’s not a lot that guitarist Amos Garrett hasn’t
done.
As one of
the most distinctive guitar players since the Telecaster was invented, he’s made
almost a dozen albums of his own, most of them for the Edmonton-based label
Stony Plain. He’s appeared on more than 150 artists’ recordings, and he’s played
rock and roll, folk, country, blues and pop, and you can hear him on records
with Paul Butterfield, Ian Tyson, Bonnie Raitt, Jesse Winchester, Maria Muldaur,
Emmylou Harris and even Anne Murray.
But he’s
never recorded a jazz album.
On June
4, Stony Plain will release Jazzblues, the Amos Garrett Jazz Trio’s debut
album, which will include pieces by Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk and Freddie
Hubbard, all modern jazz players who were steeped in the blues.
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“What
we‘re doing is bringing the blues back to jazz — it used to a major part of
jazz, but along the way the music got too complicated, some of the musicians got
too self-involved, and the blues got lost,” he says.
He
pauses, and adds: “And a lot of jazz fans got lost too. It would be nice to get
a few of them back in the fold.”
Garrett
doesn’t see his jazz album as a major stretch, in large because the common root
of the blues is as instantly recognizable as Garrett’s unique
sound.
The new
recording features bassist Greg Carroll as the rock Garrett and Calgary guitar
virtuoso Keith Smith lean on.
Smith,
almost unknown outside Alberta, is adept at chord soloing and the use of
elaborate plucked harmonics and alternating harmonics and natural fretted notes.
“You know,” Garrett laughs, “all those things pioneered by Ed Bickert and Chet
Atkins and then taken to the moon by Lenny Breau.”
In
addition to the pieces by Miles, Monk and Hubbard there are other gems on the
CD, all of it recorded live at various concerts in Western Canada. Among them, a
stunning vocal by Roberta Donnay on “Skylark,” an old Hoagy Carmichael/Johnny
Mercer tune.
There’s
another classic from the American songbook, “Cocktails for Two,” and a medley of
two tunes by Bob Erlendson, a Calgary-based jazz player whom Garrett has long
admired — and who taught the late Lenny Breau.
Garrett
remains as active as ever. There are continuing gigs with the Jazz Trio, he’ll
be leading the famed House Band at the Edmonton Folk Music Festival again this
summer, and there will be dates across Canada. And he’s going to teach at a
music camp in Alaska. The Jazz Trio is set to appear at the Vancouver Island
Folk Festival, and Amos will play an all-star guitar session with James Burton,
Albert Lee and David Wilcox — a serious amount of twang power. And, of course,
he still has his powerful blues band of 25 years, the Eh!
Team.
Sounds
like a jazz life, indeed…
Jzzzblues will be
distributed in Canada via Warner Music, in the U.S. by ADA, and in Europe by
CRS.
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