I’m so old, I remember when jazz sounded like jazz, and not like 70s rock.
Guitarist Joel Harrison is labeled as a jazz guitarist, and he well may be, but as one who grew up in the 60s and 70s, I know a rock album when I hear one, and this is a rocker. Allison Miller hits the drums Anthony Pirog plays guitar and Stephan Crump is on bass guitar, banging heads on “Critical Conversation”, creating a funky ricochet like the Steve Miller Band on “Ill See You In The Shining World” and sounding like an opening act at the Whiskey on the dark “Buffalo Heart”. Oh, there’s a bluesy ballad somewhere in the heavy “Desert Solitaire”, and some acoustic guitar on the folksy “Last Rose of Summer”, but the most basic color is black and blue, as on the thick and disjointed rubato of “The Great Mirage”. Kiss with flatted 5ths.