 You
could call it a "concert hangover." The way you
feel for a few days after experiencing an incredible live
performance. You want to recapture the experience and share
it with your friends, family, co-workers and even strangers
you pass on the street. You load up your player with their
music but the studio songs sound too polished, tweaked and
restrained and live albums tend to rely more on delivering
a series of hits than replicating a live performance. Brian
Hughes has bypassed all that and captured an incredible
live performance intact on his new self-released live CD.
Simply titled Brian Hughes Live,
it is a chance for fans to hear him in a completely natural
setting where he can cut loose and show all the facets of
his artistry. It is also a chance for those who aren't fans
yet to catch up on one of the best and most unheralded guitarists
in out there. An added benefit - play this for anyone who
believes that smooth jazz is "grandfather music" or
that jazz in general is too technical, pristine and academic
and it will shake those preconceptions away in the span of
any given solo.
Recorded in Montreal by Espace Musique, Radio-Canada's music radio network in
2005, this CD is packed with moments of brilliance and genre-shifting depth.
There are blistering rock guitar solos, pulse raising percussion jams, speedy
flamenco runs, thumpin' bass breaks, keyboard solos that veer from atmospheric
to fired up fusion. Through it all there are a group of innovative, seasoned
musicians playing real instruments in a live setting. Hughes' guitar is upfront
but this is an ensemble project. Every member of this tight-knit group gets their
chance to stretch out and show what they can do, and what they can do is play
with a wide range of nuance and style, seamlessly shifting from subtle to fiery
to flashy and back often within the course of a even the briefest passage. The
program is beautifully paced. The energized tracks and power solos are bridged
by songs that are more meditative and nuanced. The set opens with "While
The World Slowly Turns", which starts with Hughes playing a clean lead line
over an atmospheric, dreamy background and evolves into a set of fast paced solos
from Hughes and keyboardist Les Portelli fueled by drummer Tal Bergman and percussionist
Ron Powell's backbeat. Percussion is upfront from the opening moment of the breezy,
fast paced "The Beat." "Nasca Lines," originally on his second
CD, Under One Sky, is a Spanish flavored world music
showcase from the opening acoustic flamenco solo through some of the most precisely
fast acoustic guitar work I've ever heard. The Latin flavor continues but shifts
toward salsa on "Son Y Lola," one of the two big showcase songs on
a a project where every song is full of showcase moments. The guitar and percussion
pyrotechnics here are simply stunning. It is followed by gentle but foreground
guitar line that opens "Omaha Unbound." Then "Thinkin' of You," opens
it up again with some speedy jazzed up guitar licks driven by the tight rhythm
section as it builds momentum into some powerful acoustic piano work from Portelli
and a drum/percussion duel featuring an unidentified but fascinating sounding
instrument in the middle of the song. "For You," a 13 minute jaw-dropper,
has a gentle groove that gets taken into another zone entirely during Tim Landers'
shape-shifting bass solo that mixes jazzed up subtlety with some rapid fire thumpin'
that will shake your speakers and the walls behind them. Portelli then moves
the song into jam band turf with a retro-rock B3 solo that builds to a sizzling
crescendo as Hughes comes in for a wild electric guitar solo to take it home. The
lyrical "Endless Road" ends the set in a contemplative space, a good
thing because if people left the concert right after "For You" they
would probably carry all that unleashed energy into the parking lot and drive
into each other in the eagerness to hit the open road.
There are so many amazing moments and thrilling solos on this CD that I actually
did start writing them down at one point. It was tempting to list them here in
the spirit of "you've gotta hear this..go to 4 minutes into track X!" Especially
since they are such good reference points for people who roll their eyes when
you use the words "jazz," "instrumental," or "smooth," or "adult
oriented." The list got long and ended up encompassing about 71 of the 72
minutes of music here so the best thing to do is just start anywhere on any track
and prepare to be blown away. Three of these songs clock in at over 11 minutes
and the rest hover in the eight minute range but there is never a moment when
any song drags or becomes overindulgent. As a matter of fact there is so much
going on that it actually seems to run shorter than it really is. One thing for
sure, you'll return to these songs time and time again and probably dig in and
replay some of the solos repeatedly too. It's quite a package and quite a gift
he has given us. Real live music with nothing filtered out by some "gatekeeper" that
feels like they have to underestimate the listeners and stay in an artificial
safety zone. Hughes does not underestimate us at all. Hopefully the reward will
be substantial sales driven by word of mouth buzz. Theres no way to be quiet
about this one after you hear it. That's how music gets out there these
days. Buy it, listen, then spread the word.
Listen to samples and buy both the CD and individual tracks on Brian's website:
www.brianhughes.com
Song samples are also available on Brian's MySpace page: www.myspace.com/brianhughesguitar
-Shannon West
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