 In
the stale world of jazz guitar - where Pat Metheny is a god, Charlie
Hunter passes for progressive and Bill Frisell is about all there
is that's consistently exciting - an album like Will Bernard's Directions
to My House comes as nothing less than a revelation. The Oakland-based
axe man kicks the CD off with "Not Necessarily Stoned":
Set to a New Orleans march beat, it finds him overlaying slurry
electric and bluesy National steel. (The song veritably begs for
Tom Waits on vocals.) From here, Bernard and company veer liberally
into skittering post-bop, free-rhythm meanderings, luscious atmospherics,
lyrical melodicism, skronky freakouts and more. His tones range
from slurry to warbly to spiky, and his fractured phrasing never
fails to surprise.
By
Eric Snider |