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The Jonathon Feldman Trio

Straight Ahead and Blue

by James Blachly

Heard Here Rating:
"I don't know about the Review's fuzzy numbers, but this gets a three."

You won't find anything shocking in the John Feldman Trio's Straight Ahead and Blue, which is so rooted in tradition that it never really gets off the ground. Feldman, an Oberlin graduate, has established a working trio in Rochester, NY, with two other solid players from Eastman, bassist Laura Sommer and drummer Steve Gates. All three have day jobs (Feldman is a lawyer, Sommer is a training developer for Eastman-Kodak and Gates is a pilot), which makes this album feel good in some ways; it is always nice to hear solid music from part-time musicians.

While their style is ostensibly a versatile intermingling of jazz and blues, it is fairly homogenous and grounded. Feldman says in the liner notes that the goal was to "put the feeling and emotion of the blues into everything we play." In that sense, at least, they accomplish their goal, filling even the "straight ahead" selections like "You Don't Know what Love Is," "Gee Baby Ain't I Good to You," and "There is No Greater Love" with their blues feel; throughout the entire album, neither Gates nor Sommer takes a solo.

Feldman keeps a pretty good feel going. His licks are all carefully structured, his chord voicings thick, satisfying any need one has for music that doesn't take you out of your work-a-day circle, and his vocals seem like they would be a perfect match for any small-town club scene. With a brandy and a slow Friday night in the middle of winter in Rochester, it would be a pleasure to sit on a black plushy couch and feel my thin black socks and fancy shoes, the clink of ice in a heavy glass and some good solid blues.

Their music never skips a beat, but then again with what they're playing, it would be hard to. Gates and Sommers fill their role as a solid rhythm section well, playing endless quarters, eighths, and the occasional triplet. Just don't expect them to do much else. This is a piano-trio playing the blues, and you get what you pay for. You get some solid music, an alumnus doing well to keep music in his life with a fairly busy gigging schedule.

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Copyright © 2000, The Oberlin Review.
Volume 129, Number 7, November 3, 2000

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