Daylight throbbery – steal away.
Jazz-rock bass heaven with a who’s who of formidable players join Chris Minh Doky.
Impossible Gentleman Gwilym Simcock and his fellow Methenyian Birdman composer Antonio Sánchez pop up in a starry cast that also includes the Steely Dan drummer Keth Carlock and the Sanbornian keyboardist Ricky Peterson.
Carlock’s monstrous groove lights up the album on tracks like the compelling ‘Good Foot.’
Jazz-funk, big fat, generous, riffs, super tunes, head bob along.
Tunes are Doky’s, some written with his son Milo who also appears as does Miles Davis legend percussion royalty Mino Cinelu and the very happening keyboardist Poul Reimann.
Holdsworthian legend Gary Husband pops up on the very beautiful percussion heavy ballad ‘Northern Roads’ which has some never knowingly under throbbing bass from Doky that works mightily in context.
The hugely melodic and rampagingly rhythmical bassist, 56, of Vietnamese-Danish lineage as a teenager in New York fell under the influence of the great guitarist Mike Stern whose band he joined in the 90s. Doky’s own records include Appreciation (1989), Minh (1998) and Transparency (2018). In 2010, he was even knighted by the queen of Denmark.
As a composer Doky has also written for movies and the ballet.
Some tracks here notably ‘The Sniper’ have a very filmic quality.
But it’s the riff/groove alchemy above all and handsome glossy sonics that combine to push this over the line on just about every track to get the week off to a memorable start.
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