With its muscle-bound grooves, crunching bass lines and scatter- gun playing from the leader, “subtle” might not spring to mind when guitarist Wayne Krantz’s latest offering hits you squarely between the ears.
But closer attention will reward. Krantz held court at a now legendary Thursday-night session at the 55 Bar in New York for the best part of a decade, from the 1990s to the early noughties. With bassist Tim LeFebvre and drummer Keith Carlock, Krantz developed an approach to improvisation that united the nuance of contemporary jazz with the f**k-you attitude of rock’n’roll.
Le Febvre, Carlock and multi- instrumentalist Nate Wood are in attendance as he returns to that winning formula here – proving that volume, aggression and a predilection for pop songs are no barriers to infinite subtlety.
