JARTSE TUOMINEN — Time of Change (review)

JARTSE TUOMINEN — Time of Change album cover

Album · 2005 · Jazz Related Rock

5/5 · 2014-02-06
lucas

Jazz-rock...and so much more!

Jartse Tuominen is an accomplished finnish guitarist who played with a host of renown artists: Joe Satriani, Jackson Browne, Doobie Brothers among others. With 'Time Of Change' he recorded a bunch of instrumental songs (except two sung ones) in a melodic jazz-rock approach, throwing in elements of shredding guitar, pop, heavy prog, southern rock, blues, space rock, funk, organized as described below in the track-by-track review.

"Midnight Express" is a dynamic track where drums are excited like the boiling magma of a volcano ready to explode, and with excursions into southern-rock/heavy-prog (the sabbathian guitar and the strange keys in the chorus)

"Seven Seas" features aquatic (see the title of the song!) and echoing rhythmic guitar together with floating keyboard layers like a breeze blowing, and aerial guitar solos. Drumming is complex and retains the same hypnotic effect as the rhythmic guitar loops with its repeated pattern. The song builds slowly into more aggressive territories when drum chops go to prominence and guitar solos go faster and devoid of any clear direction. The control is not completely lost as the echoing guitar and the regular pattern of drums remains. The expression ?calm before the storm" takes all its sense here : the waves of the "seven seas" keep quiet before becoming turbulent.

"Texas Roots" : one immediately thinks of Stevie Ray Vaughan and Texas blues, and ? bingo - this is the case with the bluesy opening guitar theme, which is repeated all over the song. Drums are in a funky mood. Hammond reinforces the vintage 70's funk side. A Vai-esque and anthemic guitar solo bursts in the chorus. Crazy guitar soloing and soaring Hammond interpserse the choruses.

The title track is a ballad with its lulling rhythm and gentle picking in the first part : a kind of mix ? when you listen carefully ? of slowed down spanish flamenco, a bit of slowed down country/bluegrass, and echoes of shredding guitarists like Satriani. Electric guitar then bursts together with Hammond and gives a taste of Gary Moore's "parisienne walkways" to the song. As the song progresses, the lulling air of the debut comes back and even offers a wink to Pink Floyd in the passage with aerial/anthemic guitar and soaring Hammond.

"Out there" is a song with strong echoes of Steve Morse's melodic lines in the main guitar theme and an overall jazz-funk mood. The "impossible guitar part" at 1'49 is reminiscent of Steve Vai at the time he was with Frank Zappa.

Except for, once again, the Steve Morse aerial and melodic approach in the chorus, "one of these days" is in an even more jazz-funk tone than the previous one, with nice hypnotic guitar picks. Towards the two thirds though, the dynamic jazz-funk has been traded for a short hazy jazz-rock passage with a bass solo, then the hopping jazz-funk comes back after the melodic solo of the chorus.

"Weird Timing" is a briliant heavy/jazz rock tune with energetic playing. Zappa comes to mind with the eccentric guitar solos, but the blasting guitars give also a southern rock feel to the whole. On a par with the title of the song, a drum solo punctuates the music.

In the beginning, "Dreamer" starts as a sunny folksy balad with some echoing pastoral rhythm guitars and lulling guitar solos. It soon turns to a shredding affair, with the virtuosic and punchy solos of Jartse, alternating between weeping solos and more acrobatic ones.

The album ends with two sung tracks, with the beautiful voice of Yvonne Charbonneau. The first of these two songs, "Love And The Perfect Game" is a positive pop song with solid rhythmic base. Guitar solos are in a Gary Moore's bluesy tone.

The second song, "the longest mile" retains a sadder atmosphere, with a slower pace, echoing guitars of Jartse, the suspended Hammond, and more tremolos in Yvonne's vocals.

Overall, this album is very enjoyable with great dynamics, the right balance between guitar acrobatics and melodic themes, and a great diversity of influences.