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Jazz
2023
Estonian guitarist, Jaak Sooäär, takes it easy breezy on this one. If you need a ballpark comparison he’s kind of like Chet Atkins but more cool and less country. Everything he does is ultra smooth in a very good way. He finds excellent melodic grooves to slide in and navigates them with perfect tone. He jumps from quick runs to chords to runs to riffs with deft precision and never bites off more than he can chew which isn’t a limitation because he can chew a lot. He reminds me more of the early jazz guitarists than the extravagant fusion heroes. He’s also straight forward and on this album doesn’t appear to interested in diving deeply into dissonance. He stays within the tune. Honest jazz, you could call it.
Ara Yaralyan is listed on Discogs as an
Armenian/Estonian double bassist. Even though he plays a secondary role to Sooäär’s obvious lead, perhaps as the instruments dictate, I actually find his best moments to also be some of the best moments and passages on the record. I love Dave Holland and Yaralyan’s musical sensibilities remind me of Holland. Terrific finesse. And when he solos it’s melancholy and gorgeous.
I don’t have as much to say about the percussion except that it’s always on point and strikes me as intentionally modest.
My favorite releases are going to be more avant garde but that’s a personal bias. Putting that aside I strongly recommend checking this out.
Warmth Highest 