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Issue #14 Jan. '00 One
of the simple joys in life is kicking back with an old friend and
shooting the
breeze. It doesn't matter if the conversation is about your father
teaching you
to throw a curve ball, the girlfriend you met while buying a used
kitchen
table, your limping little dog, or the house parties until 9 o'clock in
the AM.
What matters is the time you are sharing; How it eases your mind and
comforts
your soul... Our
old friends Crenshaw are back with their
new CD the
mack sessions the follow up to last years disc add
the good
the IndepenDisc Feature of
Mar. '99,
and they've laid to rest the industry standard "Sophomore Jinx". Here
Dan and Mike Allenby, Tad Howard, and Jon Melzer have taken the formula
that
made add the good one of our favorites of
'99 and built upon
it in towering proportions. the
mack sessions eases our mind and comforts our soul as Crenshaw
kicks back and entertains us with smooth, funk laced jamfests that
carry us
along with gleeful abandon. Taking a more (unintentional) Steely Dan
approach
this time around, Crenshaw drops extended
middle bridges of
exquisite jazz infused lead guitar work into their Dave Matthews -with
a twist-
groove rhythms. The results are a continuous run of intriguing hooks
and catchy
fills that delight the senses and move our feet to a subconscious
shuffle that
we only recognize once the music has stopped. The
Grateful Dead parallel can still be applied (we forgive the "Shakedown
Street" opening riff cop in "here
comes dizzy") in the way that Crenshaw's
musical compositions come off extremely tight and precisely arranged,
yet give
the feel of complete improvisation as they sail away. As a unit, Crenshaw
plays off one another to perfection, allowing each to guide the other
as they
carve their own musical paths. To quote myself from last years add
the
good review: "Their sound is provocative,
tantalizing,
hypnotic, funky, serene, and just plain easy on the ears."
That quote
applies here, but jumps from the minors to the majors. Using
shared vocals Crenshaw adds to the
overall ambiance of
the disc by perfectly matching individual vocal abilities to the
structure of
each song so as to complete/complement the arrangements that carry them
along
on their musical journey. And on this musical journey it doesn't matter
what
the conversation is about... the
mack
sessions by Crenshaw
is one of the simple
joys of life. Kick back and share some time with it, you'll be glad you
did. Crenshaw
- the mack sessions
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