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Jeff Taylor has a big voice. In the tradition of the great blues shouters, Taylor is a commanding presence. But he\u2019s merely one of five ingredients in the recipe that is the Altered Five Blues Band. From the rollicking and rock-steady bass work of Mark Solveson to the fleet-fingered keyboards of Raymond Tevich to Jeff Schroedl\u2019s delightfully varied guitar to Alan Arber\u2019s commanding drumming, the band is firing on all cylinders throughout Holler if You Hear Me<\/i>.<\/p>\n
The band explores tonal color primarily though Schroedl\u2019s choice of guitar sounds and Tevich\u2019s keys (electric and acoustic piano, organ). They do a lot with a minimum of fuss. And guest Jason Ricci adds bright and soulful harmonica to five of the album\u2019s 13 cuts.<\/p>\n
One handy indicator that this outfit is confident is the track list: every single one of the tunes is a group original. Guitarist Schroedl is the primary composer, but on cuts like \u201cGuilty of a Good Time,\u201d all five musicians get in on the composing. And the group\u2019s collective sense of humor is showcased on \u201cIf You Go Away (She Might Come Back)\u201d; the lyric doubles down on a familiar blues trope, but does it in a way that\u2019s somehow fresh. And Taylor\u2019s hearty laugh as the song ends lets the listener know that it\u2019s all in fun.<\/p>\n
That cocky and lighthearted perspective informs the supercharged blues rocker \u201cFull Moon, Half Crazy\u201d and the swinging storytelling \u201cWhere\u2019s My Money?\u201d as well. \u201cAll Suit, No Soul\u201d pokes fun at wealthy poseurs, with a melody that recalls Junior Wells\u2019 \u201cMessin\u2019 with the Kid.\u201d<\/p>\n
More serious is \u201cHolding on with One Hand,\u201d a gospel-blues tune that give Schroedl and Tevich more opportunities to shine. The band takes things in an Albert King direction for \u201cClear Conscience, Bad Memory.\u201d The swaggering \u201cIn the Name of No Good\u201d features some nice gurgling organ washes and an insistent, metallic snare drum sound from Arber. Listen closely for some especially tasty bass work on that cut, too.<\/p>\n
\u201cFifteen Minutes of Blame\u201d takes the music to the edges of the group\u2019s style. The central sonic component is Tevich\u2019s clavinet, run though a wah-wah pedal. The instrument takes on some of the character of a guitar, but because its tone is so different from that of Schroedl\u2019s axe, the two instruments spar throughout the tune. The result is four of the most exciting minutes on Holler if You Hear Me<\/i>. The record closes with a dance floor number; as its title suggests, \u201cBig Shout Out\u201d name-checks a long list of blues heroes who have inspired the band and countless others.<\/p>\n
Holler if You Hear Me<\/i> is the Milwaukee-based quintet\u2019s sixth album; previous releases have won awards from the International Blues Challenge, Independent Music Awards, Wisconsin Music Awards and from Guitar World magazine. The band was nominated for a Blues Music Award in 2018. And there\u2019s every reason to think that Holler if you Hear Me<\/i> is in line for similar accolades.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Jeff Taylor has a big voice. In the tradition of the great blues shouters, Taylor is a commanding presence. But he\u2019s merely one of five ingredients in the recipe that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21791,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,49,65],"tags":[4664],"class_list":["post-21790","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blues","category-new-release","category-review","tag-altered-five-blues-band","cat-9-id","cat-49-id","cat-65-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21790","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21790"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21790\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21792,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21790\/revisions\/21792"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21791"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21790"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21790"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}