Rock-infused electric guitar trio jazz featuring NY guitarist Greg Skaff. Guest: Charley Dreyton.

New York guitarist Greg Skaff has an impressive jazz pedigree. A native of Wichita, Kansas, he came to town in the '80s and shortly thereafter hooked up with tenor sax great Stanley 'Don't Mess With Mr. T' Turrentine, a gig which lasted five years. There followed playing situations with the likes of Freddie Hubbard and David 'Fathead' Newman and a lengthy tenure with saxophonist-composer-bandleader Bobby Watson that involved several tours and a few recordings.
It's probably safe to say that none of them would appreciate this rock-tinged project, with the exception of Bobby Watson, who had Skaff playing distortion guitar lines on his 1995 album Urban Renewal. The others might cringe when Skaff unleashes his potent chops on grunge-laden tunes like 'Mother Root,' 'Talisman' and 'Somewhere in the Middle East ' with a tone that could only be described as 'hellacious' in straight ahead circles. 'I wanted to do a record that wasn't straight ahead swing and wasn't just blowing tunes,' he explains. 'And I wanted to represent some different sides of my playing that haven't been documented before.'
But Skaff is being very honest on Soulmation, his fourth recording for Zoho, following on the heels of 2012's organ trio outing 116th & Park. The gloriously subversive sound of distorted guitar is as much a part of his DNA, having grown up with rock guitar gods like Jeff Beck and Jimi Hendrix, as is the sound of Wes Montgomery's octaves, George Benson's linear burn, Grant Green's righteous grooves and Pat Martino's laser-sharp facility. Skaff channels them all, in some capacity, on this ambitiously eclectic project that has his splitting time between two trios -- one with organist Pat Bianchi (back from 116th & Park) and drummer Charley Drayton (Divinyls, Keith Richards' X-Pensive Winos), the other with electric bassist Fima Ephron (a charter member of Lost Tribe) and drummer Jonathan Barber (a member of trumpeter Jeremy Pelt's current acoustic quintet). Bill Milkowski

Track Listing

• Conjure
• Genmaicha
• Soulmation
• Mother Root
• Smoke In The Sun
• Bottom Feeder
• Fleurette Africaine
• Porcupine Hat
• Talisman
• Juke
• Snake Oil
• Somewhere In The Middle East

Additional Details

Label: Zoho

Genre: Jazz

Language: English

Run Time: 57 mins

Region: 0

Release Date: 04/07/17

UPC: 880956170220