#8 Fry His Ass - Skerik’s Syncopated Taint - by profyousion
Friday, January 23rd, 2009profyousion’s video review fry-his-ass
husky
This is another funky, greasy, new jazz jam…woooo!
“Fry His Ass” off the” Husky” album 2006 by skerik’s syncopated taint septet. Unfortunately, it’s an album only selection on itunes
The phrasing alternates between mellow, then fierce… back and forth continuously to a climax that sounds as if the fellas just played themselves out.
If Thelonius Monk did the horn arrangement and they were played by Roland Kirk, it might sound like this. Screamin’ horn harmonies slightly off key, yet the drummer keepin’ the funk “in the pocket”, even the clarinet gets some dap on this.
Seemingly, the prevailing view amongst todays’ musical pundits is”gone are the days of jazz rooted in gospel and blues. The “Nu Jazz” is rooted in funk and hip-hop”. Funk has an underrated influence on a great deal of popular music in general, and hip-hop with its’ syncopated beat and phrasing is a subset of funk!
Skerik (née Eric Walton) is from Seattle, Washington. Performing on the tenor and baritone saxophone, often with electronics and loops, Skerik is a “pioneer” in a playing style that has been dubbed saxophonics.
Saxophonics is a recent term for techniques developed by saxophonists such as Eddie Harris and Sonny Stitt, who both played the Varitone saxophone beginning in the 1960s. In addition to playing the Varitone, Eddie Harris had experimented with looping techniques on his 1968 album Silver Cycles.
Can one really be called a pioneer forty years later? Granted, the cat is bad, but let’s not get carried away with descriptors for marketing.
“Syncopate the Taint” was the first track I heard, which led me to checking the remaining tracks. Believe me the whole album is bad, a strong B+(I never give an A).
Here’s a YouTube video of a live performance.
The rest of the septet consists of Craig Flory on baritone saxophone and clarinet, Dave Carter on trumpet, Hans Teuber on alto saxophone and flute, Steve Moore on trombone and Wurlitzer, Joe Doria on Hammond B-3 and John Wicks on drums.
Skerik named the band after the term, “Syncopated Taint,” which was used by America’s first ever drug czar Harry J. Anslinger to describe the nation’s moral decay in the 1930s and ’40s as caused by the combination of jazz and marijuana.
