[2017-02-24] Steve Khan "Backlog" (Shrapnel)

Charlie · **Joined:** 23 Dec 2014 **Posts:** 14199

Description
In jazz guitar history, few have reinvented themselves as definitively as Steve Khan. A guitarists' guitarist, Khan's chops and writing were inimitable when emerging on New York's mid-to-late '70s"downtown" scene, but it was in 1981 with the first of three albums featuring a quartet monikered from its title, Eyewitness (all three reissued on BGO's important 2016 two CD set) , where a true paradigm shift occurred. Featuring a more mature Khan shifting from guitar gymnastics to an emphatically collaborative approach, the guitarist placed the music - and collective group sound - first and foremost.

Not that Khan had abandoned his technical acumen; if anything, in this highly simpatico quartet where he'd opted for the warmer, largely clean-toned Gibson 335 that has since become a signature, Khan also developed a far more sophisticated and formidable harmonic sensibility, rich with a dancing blend of open voicings, intervallic leaps and quirky, idiosyncratic yet vividly lyrical phrases. It was germination of a still-ongoing period of musical growth.

His fifth studio album since returning to solo recordings after nearly 10 years away, Backlog continues Khan's innovative reimagining of material rarely (if ever) afforded a Latin treatment with, for the first time, electric guitar front and center. Applying the complex polyrhythms and multiplicity of rhythmic stylings found in Latin/Afro-Cuban music to original material, obscurer jazz selections, and evergreen jazz and Great American Songbook standards, Backlog forms a trilogy of sorts with the similarly superb Parting Shot (2011) and Subtext (2014). Further building upon concepts introduced more definitively The Green Field (2005) and Borrowed Time (2007), Backlog's music - impeccably selected and arranged - also features some of Khan's best playing to date.

Tracklist
1. Criss Cross (Entrecruzado)
2. Concepticus In C
3. Latin Genetics (Genetica Latina)
4. Our Town
5. Head Start (Ventaja)
6. Rojo
7. Invisible
8. Emily
9. Go Home (Vete A Casa)
10. Cata

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01MZ68G16/?tag=imwan-20

[2017-02-24] Steve Khan "Backlog" (Shrapnel)

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