Gutter Guitar

"-Hey Ed, I'd like to do a rawbounce session with a guitar quartet thing. 

-Allright, who's on guitar ?

-Well... me."

That was six months ago. I learned some guitar to be able to play with a dear friend who's a Hammond B3 player, but because of various schedule problems we couldn't make it yet.

So here I am in June '09, and I want to record something on guitar bad. No organ player... And I didn't want no piano player either. Then came the idea given by Kenny Burrell on his classic Midnight Blue record: a guitar quartet with bass, drums and... congas ! That was it.

On this record you'll find two newcomers:

---Hervé 'P-Jay' Jacqumin on congas, a fellow bandmate in Orquesta Ceiba who's not only a latin percussion conaisseur (played in countless latin projects) but is a true hiphop head too, thus nailing that fat and laidback feel I was lookin' for:

---and veteran Jean-Michel Albertucci on double bass who is actually a high-profile piano player (he played with Archie Shepp) and is currently working on solo improvised performances. As much he is into no-holds barred music when he's on piano, he's got a rock solid and old school oriented bass playing wich supports the whole band.

The atmosphere was definately laidback, fat and groovy this day. We played mostly blues-tinged or modal tunes. Luc Bartoli joined in for 2 of my own compositions: 'Blues for Slick McWolf", a slow blues dedicated to Tex Avery's classic tuxedo Wolf, and "Mojave Dawn", a soulful boogaloo. The band is really cookin' on these two.

Other tunes are "Grant's Dimensions", a quirky 20-bar r'n'b kinda tune composed by Grant Green, my #1 inspiration on guitar,  "Bahia", the first Coltrane tune I ever heard, on wich P-Jay takes a sweaty conga solo, the deep "Midnight Blue" and the speedy Junior Mance tune "Looptown". Check out that drum solo on that one too... wild !

Hope you'll dig the gritty, dirty vibe on that one. We sure had a blast and got nasty !

-Slikk Tim, June 29th, Nancy '09

ps: By the way, Rawbounce is just a bit older than 1 year old, and the reception we got was just beyond any expectations. We want to thank all y'all listeners and downloaders for keepin' that shit alive. Keep it raw and bouncy & stay tuned for more...