Two "modern" jazz albums - and two very different sounds. Joe Beck's Finger Painting is melodic and easy to listen to, reminiscent of John McLaughlin or Pat Metheny, but not as immediate. T. J. Kirk is as insistent as Joe Beck is not: rooted deep in James Brown and Thelonious Monk, very electric, very driving, very acid. Two different sounds: both CDs well produced and nicely presented, with Joe Beck's having the edge on sound quality.
Joe Beck is a veteran session and studio musician with several well-received recordings to his name. Finger Painting features three other well-known names: Bill Evans on sax, Mark Egan on bass and Danny Gottlieb on drums. In contrast, T. J. Kirk are the next generation: young jazz musicians straight from the hotbed of San Francisco.
I've listened to both CDs several times. I found that I had to be in exactly the right mood to listen to T. J. Kirk, otherwise it was removed from the CD player within two minutes, whereas I could start listening to Finger Painting, wander out of the room and within the same two minutes have forgotten that I was listening to anything at all.
Recommended tracks: "You Can Have Watergate Just Gimme Some Bucks And I'll Be Straight" from T. J. Kirk and "What Would I Do Without You" from Finger Painting.
I can't say that either of these CDs will go straight to the top of my most-played list, but I'll probably play Joe Beck more often than T. J.: I found almost an hour of T. J. Kirk a little too much to share my home with: probably live, in a club in downtown San Francisco, I'd be raving about them and dancing all night. Finger Painting is good background sound: it doesn't impose, it doesn't strike a bad note. But I'm ten times more likely to reach for a John McLaughlin CD, and even more likely to choose Pat Metheny: because they both say something with every note. However, somehow I suspect that I may still be listening to Finger Painting now and again in ten years time... The sales blurb says that it will be a "classic". I'll reserve my judgment for a year or two.
