Music / soul jazz
Review: Snazzback Album Launch, Strange Brew
It took barely a minute before it was evident that The Snazz are back and … oh my god! … people were dancing! In a room without socially distanced tables! And a bar where you could go up and buy a drink! This may have been the launch of the new Snazzback album In The Place but it also felt like the dawning of the Age of Aquarius, a tangible shift in the status quo. Of course, we’d been there before (and we all know how that panned out) but just for this night it felt like nobody wanted to question things. For one thing, that would have been a great disservice to the sheer life-affirming up-ness that Snazzback can be counted upon to deliver.
Dave Sanders, Alfie Grieve, Hal Sutherland and Eli JItsuto
You would be hard put to easily define their music, though it always seems recognisably theirs. It has a fine variety of style ranging from slow soul in the classic Bill Withers mode to ambient hip-hop, fiery nu-funk, cool soul-jazz or bracing Nu Yorican grooves. They describe themselves as ‘new wave dance floor instrumentalists’ which does the job. What matters is that they know what they are doing and thus it always sounds right. The arrangements are clever, too, with the brass pairing of Dave Sanders on alto sax and Alfie Grieve’s trumpet able to shape the sound and swiftly shift it from downtown jazz club to a sweat-drenched dance floor.
Special guest Stanlæy
This gig was a showcase for the album, naturally, but also for the band itself as they finally got together with a reasonable sized audience. There were cameo appearances from long term collaborators like vocalist Stanlæy who brought a classic dance music presence to her number, and beat-flavoured rapper Soss who slipped onto the end of Flump, a favourite from their first album, buoyed with smooth horns, Rich Allen’s liquid bass and Hal Sutherland’s cool keyboard sounds.
is needed now More than ever
Solomon OB
There was more theatre to Solomon OB’s brace of numbers, both in his declamatory performance (reading the lines from a scrolled up piece of wallpaper) and in the way the music rose and fell with the tide of the lyrics. Yet, even when they stoked it, the sound never overwhelmed any of the vocalists – a tribute to their judgement and the generally excellent mixing work from the Strange Brew desk.
Myke Vince, Chris Langton, Rich Allen
But of course it is in the instrumentals where you get to appreciate just how good they are as musicians, whether it’s the subtle Latin percussion duet between Myke Vince and Chris Langton on The Hump or guitarist Eli Jitsuto suddenly emerging from the mean streets vibe of Alice to deliver an incandescent solo before melting back into the tune’s stately slow payout. Dave Sanders is tireless throughout, burning solo after solo yet always hooking into the riff once they’re through.
There’s a lot of love in Bristol for Snazzback, and they’ve earned it through hard working gigging, reliably producing great music you can dance to if you want. The new album shows how their music has become more polished in a way that should attract ears from farther and wider. Good news for them, maybe less so for their Bristol fanbase who count on them always being around. As always, the lesson is: buy now while stocks last!
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