Will the ghost of Lowell George show if you invoke his spirit? Fat Rudy sounds like they’re trying.

This four-piece R & B band’s debut disc, “From A Bench,” takes the blues cue and runs with it, twisting jazz measures into Jesse Smith’s compositions for an effect that often calls to mind Little Feat’s grittier tunes.

A mainstay at the Jazz Club, Fat Rudy is a natural fit for the fan reluctant to admit that the idea of yet another blues band in town doesn’t exactly get them running to the boulevard. But “From A Bench” puts feel first and style second, and both are excellent.

As a result, the blues-weary have nothing to fear for a good amount of funk, rock and jazz comes across to keep things from getting ordinary.

Four rock-solid musicians help make the difference: Jesse Smith on guitar and vocals, Andy Lawton on sax, Wayne Burgess on bass and Randy Anderson on drums. In addition, the band brings in guest artists who help sell their soul at full price: Ian Hilmer and Jeff Reinhartz have guest vocals, Mark Tesky plays guest sax on two tracks, and City Mouse’s keyboardist Dale Haefner plays keyboard throughout.

Most instrumental — heh heh — in the success of this band is the expressive saxophone wailing of Lawton, whose work mixes in and around Smith’s vocals in a way only total comfort and musical sixth-sense can provide. Lawton’s playing and the band’s jamming on the first track, “Left My Lips,” brings to mind the sax-fronted energy of John Lurie’s Lounge Lizards, but Lawton’s playing stays in the room, keeping the sound lively, solid and immediate — never at play in the fields of Esoteric.

Smith builds many of his songs around a familiar guitar vamp, a pulsating seventh- or ninth-chord twist, but when it’s his time to solo his playing shines without overtaking the disc — a credit to the producers at Two Fish. His singing comes across as being fully entrenched in a dues payment plan, and if the band continues to grow along this vein, a solid payoff is assured.

-by Joe Tougas, The Free Press

LefyMyLips

Folk/Acoustic Rock/Americana

Comments                                                Add new Comment   View All