Another brand new album (release date is October 6) comes from New York guitarist, composer and singer Joe Caro.

The really great thing about this CD is it’s mood, it has the perfect sound for those days where even a dog has his days, so if you have the blues but you need it funky and you want to shout it out loud then here is your album.

The Met Band features Paul Shaffer from the World’s Most Dangerous Band; Mark Egan on electric bass (Pat Metheny), Anton Fig on drums (Bob Dylan “Knocked Out Loaded”), Aaron Comess on drums, (Spin Doctors), Billy Peterson on upright bass (Bob Dylan “Blood On The Tracks”), Robbie Kondor on keys (Eric Clapton, Whitney Houston), Chris Palmaro on grand piano & rhodes (Yellowjackets), Tom “Bones” Malone on trombone & baritone sax (“The Blues Brothers”), Aaron Heick on sax (Sting “Symphonicities”), Etienne Stadwijk on piano (Pieces of a Dream, Richard Bona) & Mike Rodriguez on trumpet (David Bowie “Nothing Has Changed”). The album was produced and mixed by Grammy nominated and multi-platinum award winning Roman Klun and will be released on Innsbruck Records.

The CD starts with the Bob Dylan song “Highway 61 Revisited” with great funky horns and the whole band in full speed.

The next two songs are originals from Joe Caro, “Hot Mess” with the guitar giving a steady pulse and “Information Junkie” which reminds me of Steely Dan.

The Jimi Hendrix song “Fire” comes next, followed by “That Old Black Magic” which is maybe the song with the most positive mood on the album.

Since we all feel a little bit cheered up it’s time for the title song “Every dog has his day” where Joe Caro shows us the restricted and grey world of a dog “rolling over,  day after day, just for a treat,  I’d rather be astray”, but I guess what is valid for a dog is also valid for all of us as we have learned in the movie “Groundhog Day”:

Another highlight of the CD is “Natural Woman” played instrumental only where Joe Caro shows all his artistry and experience with different sounds and effects on the guitar.

If you like the blues, if you like it funky and on top of that if you like the sound of a guitar then this is the perfect album. As I said in the beginning, the album has also this unique mood, I would say this is urban blues at it’s best.

Another brand new CD for all guitarists comes from Carl Verheyen. It’s called “Essential Blues” and is obviously a Blues album.

Blues is especially for us guitar players a genre which we like to listen to and also include in our playing. I think the guitar is the blues instrument par excellence.

Carl Verheyen plays what I would call intelligent blues, like Robben Ford or Eric Clapton do. Carl is one of the big names in the LA studio scene, he is member of the rock group “Supertramp” since 1985 and he has basically played everything possible (TV shows, movies, recording and performing with rock and pop superstars in the last 30 years).

But he has this love with the blues and this album is like a kaleidoscope of contemporary blues. We find songs from Peter Green, Alvin Lee, Ray Charles, Willie Cobbs and also originals from Carl Verheyen plus one traditional, all arranged differently in style and sound.

There are songs very straight played like “I Take What I Want”  or “Stealing Gasoline”, some blues-rock in “Oh Well” or slow blues tunes like “Someday After A While”.

“Dodging The Blues” is a slow moll instrumental blues composed by Carl with an amazing guitar sound (reminds me a little bit of Pink Floyd).

My favorite song of the album is the Alvin Lee tune “I May Be Wrong” played with very jazzy intro.

The album closes with the Ray Charles song “Hard Times” with just guitar, bass, tambourine and vocals, also very beautiful.

The album was recorded live in three days in February 2017 and according to Carl, the “self inflicted parameters were: I would play just 2 guitars, 2 amps, do no overdubs and everything must be played and sung live in the room with bass, drums and keyboards. “. The result of these three days is a great spontaneous album, very compact but also very precise. A perfect example that it is all about the music itself, or as Carl said: I abandoned all the self doubt and just “went for it.”

Carl plays typically a Fender Stratocaster (this guitar is also the star on the CD cover) which has this sometimes a little bit thin but very distinctive sound.

As said, this is blues guitar album, it shows the different styles of blues that exist today all played in perfection. Obviously Carl Verheyen gets a chance to play great guitar solos but also Jim Cox on keyboards (piano and organ) shines as a soloist. This album gets a clear recommendation from me.

The other good news is that he will be in Europe in October and November this year, he visits Poland, Germany and the Netherlands. Details can be found on Carl’s website:

https://www.carlverheyen.com/tour-dates/

Carl also produced a nice video during the recording of the album:

1. Bob Margolin in Marian’s Jazzroom: Bob Margolin, who played between 1973 and 1980 in Muddy Water’s band came with Tad Walters on guitar and harmonica and Chuck Cotton on drums.

Quite an unusual setup but Bob showed where the blues is coming from: A man with guitar sings the blues. Some friends join in – that’s it. The way Bob Margolin plays the guitar reminded me very strong of the sound of Muddy Waters and this is also something Bob admits himself:

“Having spent so much time on bandstands with Muddy playing next to me, listening super-critically to my every note, I still feel like he’s there, judging everything I play, and giving me special inspiration, and sometimes a smile, sometimes a dirty look.”

It was not any different this evening, the spirit that came from Bob Margolin was full of that feeling sucked in from his time with Muddy. And the stories he told, showed how the blues, how this inspiration is handed over from generation to generation. Bob Margolin does it the same way as he learned it before, he brought Tad Walters as the young guy to teach it.

Bob played some of his tunes, some classic blues pieces and a little bit of country-blues (we heard “The Weight”).  After starting rather slowly, the band picked up during the show and it became a nice evening with a lot of memories coming up.

Bob Margolin “didn’t want to scare us” with too loud or to fast songs, but the second group I saw this week didn’t really care about that.

2. Frank Salis H3O feat. Francis Coletta in the bejazz club: Frank Salis (org),  Marco Nevano (sax), Rocco Lombardi (dr) from Ticino together with Francis Coletta (g) from Fribourg didn’t waste any thoughts if it could be too loud or too fast, they played what they love – groovy and funky jazz music. Franko Nevano’s playing has a heavy blues touch and Francis Coletta adds the hard-bop component to this band. The H3O band is very well rehearsed, Francis Coletta was in the studio to record the “Stonebreaker” CD in 2011 and joins every now and then the band.

These guys knew each other very well but that did not save the audience from surprises: The young talented singer Céline Piguet joined the band to sing one song at the end of each set. And here I had my deja-vu. Again people with different experience and age come together and pass on this spirit for live, rhythmic and improvised music from generation to generation.

If you like a groovy-funky jazz-organ then don’t miss this band, Frank Salis knows how to play this instrument very well and he is backed-up with an excellent drummer and a bluesy saxophone. If you get the chance to see H3O with Francis Coletta, even better, because he added the special touch with his guitar solos to this evening.

Two very good concerts which had one thing in common and brought me back to the roots of jazz music. It was indeed an excellent start in the new year.

The iTunes widgets contain links to two albums with Bob Margolin. The young Bob in Muddy Waters’ famous CD “Hard Again” and the grown-up Bob on his solo CD “In North Carolina”:

Frank Salis’ CD is not available on iTunes (you can order it directly from him, look at www.franksalis.com),  but I have added a live video which is found on YouTube: