Octave Records expands its catalog of jazz recordings with Vantage Point by guitarist, composer and music educator Jason Greenlaw. The album offers eight original songs that showcase Greenlaw’s personal take on contemporary jazz, plus an upbeat version of the Beatles’ “Norwegian Wood,” and “Children’s Games” by Antonio Carlos Jobim.
As Greenlaw noted, “almost every tune has a different thing going on, from contemporary jazz and Afrobeat-inspired, to ballads…even a song that has sort of a Western cowboy vibe to it, with slide guitar.”
Vantage Point features Jason Greenlaw on electric guitar, accompanied by Adam Bodine and Sonya Walker on acoustic and Rhodes pianos, Braxton Kahn and Gabriel Gravagno on drums, and Andrew Rose and Kevin Johnson playing acoustic and electric bass. The musicians adeptly navigate through up-tempo numbers, contemplative ballads, and other stylings. Jason’s guitar tone is sweet and full-bodied whether playing dexterous single-note lines or harmonically expansive chords. Like any great jazz group, the musicians work in sympathetic communication and leave plenty of space for each other to complement the music.
Jason Greenlaw.
Vantage Point was recorded using Octave Records’ state-of-the-art Pyramix Pure DSD recording system, and mixed and mastered using PS Audio’s flagship Aspen FR30 loudspeakers. A variety of microphones were used in order to bring out the best-possible tonality from each instrument, including a dynamic and Royer 121 ribbon mic to capture the guitar amp, a combination of stereo ribbon and condenser mics for the piano, a mix of Sennheiser MD 441 dynamic mics and a built-in pickup on the acoustic bass, and drum kit microphones including AKG 414 (overheads), Shure SM57 (snare), Sennheiser 421 (tom toms), AKG D12VR (bass), and Shure SM7B (hi-hat). Additional mics were employed to capture room ambience.
The album was recorded and mixed by Callum Bair at Octave Studios in Boulder, Colorado, with the mics artfully set up to achieve a natural balance between the instruments and their placement in the sonic space. It was recorded live to preserve the interplay between the musicians, and the dynamic contrasts and flow of their playing. Jason Greenlaw produced, with Paul McGowan as executive producer. Gus Skinas did the mastering.
Vantage Point leads off with the up-tempo “Dandelion,” with arpeggiated free-time piano and tentative guitar phrases soon launching into a fast tempo, and the melody stated on guitar. Jason Greenlaw blazes out of the gate, and plays with a rounded and full-bodied jazz guitar tone. Next up is “Contemplation,” a slow, meditative ballad with block chords that ring out on the guitar, and spot-on unison guitar and piano playing. “Suspicious Blues” features dexterous piano playing by Adam Bodine, complemented by an agile walking bass and edge-of-overdrive guitar soloing. As the title implies, this is far beyond a standard blues progression.
“Spirit” begins with ambient sounds and echoes weaving in and out before launching into a swinging angular melody, another of the many imaginative guitar solos on the album, and the introduction of a mellow Rhodes electric piano into the sonic mix. “Winter Waltz” begins with some beautiful chord melody guitar work, then shifts into piano comping with the guitar riding on top. “Speak to Me” swings hard with superb acoustic bass playing by Andrew Rose, then Greenlaw and pianist Bodine trade solos behind Braxton Kahn’s drumming punctuated by syncopated accents that push the players to greater heights.
Other highlights include Rose’s bass solo on “Motives,” which highlights the instrument’s articulate sound with body and depth. The band’s cover of the Beatles’ “Norwegian Wood” features agile ensemble playing with a superb piano solo by Sonya Walker. “Adobe Sunset” showcases Greenlaw on slide guitar, playing drawn out notes that float into space. “East” and “Children’s Games” are lively jazz workouts that give each band member a chance to shine. The album closes with “Vantage Point,” which features Kevin Johnson on electric bass, giving the song a deeper, grounded feel. Greenlaw switches to an overdriven guitar tone to push the song into post-fusion territory, with some unexpected melodic twists.
Vantage Point features Octave’s premium gold disc formulation, and the disc is playable on any SACD, CD, DVD, or Blu-ray player. It also has a high-resolution DSD layer that is accessible by using any SACD player or a PS Audio SACD transport. In addition, the master DSD and PCM files are available for purchase and download, including DSD 512, DSD 256, DSD 128, DSD 64, and DSDDirect Mastered 352.8 kHz/24-bit, 176.2 kHz/24-bit, 88.2 kHz/24-bit, and 44.1 kHz/24-bit PCM. (SRP: $29.)
Jason and I put our guitar playing heads together for an interview.
Frank Doris: How did the creation of the album come about?
Jason Greenlaw: Most of this music is songs that I wrote since moving to Colorado. I moved out here in 2020 and had been playing with a bunch of jazz combos. So a lot of the songs developed naturally by playing them live for a couple of years. I wrote a few of them within the past, I would say six months as I was getting my idea for the album together.
FD: Was everything done live or were there any overdubs?
JG: No overdubs, which was fun. One cool part about the record was I [used] two different groups, so there's two separate quartets that played on the record. The first seven songs are with one lineup and then the second half is with another lineup. Part of the mixing process was to try to mix [everything] as similarly as possible. So it's not too much of “well, this sounds completely different.”
FD: So, nice mixing and mastering job. And Octave is such a good studio.
JG: Hearing your stuff through those really high fidelity speakers is quite cool.
FD: Was it a little intimidating to hear everything with such clarity?
JG: Yeah, a little bit. Sometimes I was like, “I really wish I could just listen to everything [through this] stuff.” One instrument in particular…hearing the upright bass through their system, it was a real beautiful, big, woody, natural sound.
FD: On “Speak to Me” you get that warm, classic hollow body jazz guitar tone, but with a little bit of presence or cut to it. What kind of guitar and amp did you use?
JG: Everything was recorded through my 1979 [Fender] Twin Reverb, and then I played a D'Angelico Excel SS [guitar].
FD: I still think the Twin Reverb is the best clean-sounding amp ever.
JG: Oh, man. I never want to get rid of it.
FD: On a couple of cuts you use overdrive – “Vantage Point” has a pretty overdriven tone, like John Schofield or Mike Stern or somebody like that.
JG: I wanted something with a little bit more of a rock thing going on. Just to have a little bit of a bigger sound.
FD: I hate to call this kind of music “jazz” as I always feel it’s oversimplifying it. But postmodern jazz, and I hate using that clichéd term also, encompasses a lot of musical elements. What did you want the music to be?
JG: That's a good question. Almost each tune really has a different thing going on. “Speak to Me” and “Motives” are pretty [much] contemporary jazz-inspired. I have three slower tunes and ballads on there, “Contemplation,” “Winter Waltz,” and “Adobe Sunset.”
FD: What made you decide to play slide guitar on “Adobe Sunset?”
JG: I play with a group in Denver called Hazel Miller and the Collective. She's a singer that I work with, and it's a lot of blues, R&B, some jazz, soul-type stuff. On a bunch of the blues tunes, she asked me to start playing slide. And then I was listening to Bill Frisell's Guitars for the Space Age! Album. It has a very cool Western cowboy vibe on it. I wanted to write a song that had sort of feeling, and write a melody with a slide.
FD: It almost reminds me of the beginning of The Dark Side of the Moon.
JG: Yeah, it has some Floyd in there.
FD: Could you name some of your influences and players who inspired you?
JG: I'm a big Pat Metheny fan. I've done three or four shows in Denver the past two years doing a Pat Metheny tribute. Pat Martino. George Benson. Wes [Montgomery], John Scofield, some newer guys.
FD: I was thinking Julian Lage or Kurt Rosenwinkel, but they’re really not “new” guys anymore…new, I guess compared to…
JG: They're still kind of contemporary…they’re sort of that next generation after Scofield. I’m a big fan of Gilad Hekselman. He’s killer. I was listening to some early Gilad trio records, and that was some of the inspiration for “Dandelion.” I was [also] listening to a bunch of Afrobeat music at the time.
FD: “Suspicious Blues” suspiciously sounds not like a blues. Is that why you named it that?
JG: Most of the chords are sus [suspended] chords, which is why I called it “suspicious.”
FD: Have you played with all the musicians on the album before?
JG: Yes.
FD: Lately I’ve been obsessed about playing guitar and not getting in the way of the piano player. So, how'd you get the blend between the guitar and the piano? It sounds just right.
JG: Sometimes it would be after the first or second take of some of those tunes, and deciding some specific accompaniment that we'd want to do or trade off on. Especially on those first seven tracks. Adam Bodean, the piano player on them, is a very sensitive and interactive piano player. So we already had a good thing [going] where we were very cognizant of different spaces that we would fill. Some of it was just simply some little arrangement things of deciding who would accompany over what parts.
After playing a take or two, we would naturally just sort of arrange some of the different ways to accompany each other. It's nice to be able to hear everyone. If no one's stepping on anyone else, you can really hear what everyone's doing.
I’m so excited to get the album out there and have people listen to it, and to check out the other people on the record. They are all great Denver musicians. Everyone's making some great music out here.
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