Kirk Nelson & Jambalaya West – Savor the Moment
Independent Release
http://www.kirknelsonmusic.com
12 Tracks – 40 minutes
Californian Kirk Nelson has had a long and illustrious career in the music world. His father was a musician in jazz bands. Kirk started learning how to play the piano at age 7 and by age 8 was playing recitals and then some paying gigs for women’s garden clubs and such. At that time, he was playing classical music. But at age 12, he heard a loud garage band playing and decided he wanted to play that kind of music. He started learning to play the guitar but decided to keep his focus on the keyboards. At age 16, he joined a band that played Grateful Dead songs. Over the years, he constantly shifted his focus playing everything from rock to jazz. He worked in the Sound City Studio and for Paramount, which led him to write and perform music for tv shows and movies. He even wrote for the animated series Ren & Stimpy and had a small appearance on the show.
He got married and had three children. He stayed close to home to be with his family but did continue to play in local bands. But as his children grew up, he decided to start playing more. He eventually entered what he calls his “Blues Period”. He joined a band called Blues Gone South and followed that with a gig in Michael John and The Bottom Line. The latter group finished in the top ten at the International Blues Challenge in Memphis. He has shared the stage and recorded with Buddy Guy, James Cotton, Bo Diddley, Kenny Wayne Shepherd and Robert Cray.
In 2018, he released his first solo album, Collectibles. He then formed his band, Jambalaya West, and released an album, Lagniappe, in 2022. That album was voted the #1 jazzy blues album on the Roots Music Report. This new album is also released under that band name but Kirk who plays piano, organ, guitar, banjo and sings, Mitch Montrose on drums, and Don Weinstein on trumpet, trombone, cornet and tuba are the only three performers on all of the album cuts. They are joined by three different guitarists, four bass players, three horn players, and three backing vocalists that appear on different album cuts.
Kirk describes the music as “funky soul blues with NOLA style arrangements and a little west coast bounce”. In fact, the first song delivers on that description aptly as offered in its title, “Bounce Around”, a very funky song with a jazz pedigree. The horns jump out as he sings everything is going to be okay as there are “Only 12 Bars in a Day”. He kicks into high gear on the organ as he tells you to “Stay in Your Lane”, which might be talking about road rage, or using it as a metaphor for staying out of trouble in life.
“Back On Up the River” rocks out with a guitar solo and moves into a jazz mode with a muted trumpet. “Must Be a Reason” really gets things jumping again with Kirk’s organ again leading with the trumpets blaring along as he sings “if its heaven on earth, then celebrate the day, join in with the feeling”. “Swingin’ So Low” is a sleepy song for a late night in a bar with an easy piano, a gentle swish on the drums and cymbals, and a smokey trumpet.
“Tamale Man” arrives with an expected Hispanic touch as Kirk dips below the border. The instrumental “Wake Up the Rooster” gets a strut going with some funky guitar, cowbell in the mix, and another organ run. He tells someone to “do us all a favor” and “Turn Yourself In”, a pure New Orleans tune. “Radical” offers a political message with a statement “lead into the left, lead into the right, you’re in for a big surprise, jumpin’ the gun before you thought it out, just ain’t very wise.” “Who’s going to follow all these rules when nobody wants to lead?”
The next two songs “Basin Street Blues” and “I’m Beginning to See the Light” are the only two songs on the album not written by Kirk, but neither’s authorship is attributed to a composer. I associate the first song with Louis Armstrong and the latter with Duke Ellington, both of whom Kirk notes as early influences. If you know these songs, then you have a general sense of the tone of the whole album.
Kirk’s liner notes say, “the album plays out like a sonic crab boil spilled out on a picnic table; layers of flavor reveal themselves the more you dig in, offering – quite literally – more moments to savor”. Not sure exactly what that means, but the sense is that there is a lot going on in each song. The horns are a constant in the album, swelling in and out of every song. Is it jazzy blues or bluesy jazz? If you like the New Orleans sound, seek out this album.
