Jazz Fusion – Memphis Flyer

When Crosstown Arts musical director Jenny Davis introduced The Green Room’s featured artist last Friday, she noted something unique about him: “For those of you who don’t know, James Sexton is the unofficial M.V.P. of jazz month, he’s drummed with so many of the bands performing this March.” And while it’s true that Sexton is one of the city’s most versatile drummers, often playing with the Ted Ludwig trio and their disparate collaborators, last Friday wasn’t about his track record. Rather, it was about tracks, his tracks, never yet heard on a record but surely deserving it.

To a sold out room, Sexton and band took to the stage as he gave a shout out to his time studying with Dr. Jack Cooper and the late Tim Goodwin at the University of Memphis Scheidt School of Music, noting that while he never finished his degree there, it had profoundly affected his grasp of music and arranging. Creating his dream band, the Otis Mission, for Friday’s debut was a culmination of those and many more years of composing and arranging. “Otis is my middle name,” Sexton explains, “named after my late godfather Otis Washington.”

While one could broadly describe the compositions as jazz fusion, that would belie the stylistic versatility of the band, as they deftly navigated charts bursting with stop-time phrases and unison lines in the classic jazz fusion approach, yet ranging from funk to salsa to reggae to gospel. That band included Sexton on drums, Alvie Givhan on keyboards, Tony Dickerson on “auxiliary keys,” Joe Restivo on guitar, Carl Caspersen on bass, DeAnté Payne on mallet instruments (via a large set of pads triggering samples), and Christian Kirk and brother James “Jennings” Sexton as guest singers, and they rose to the challenge of the material’s complexity with aplomb.

And yet, to hear James Sexton tell it, that was just the beginning. “This is a condensed version of The Otis Mission,” he wrote to the Memphis Flyer. “I originally wrote the music for a 15-piece ensemble, consisting of three singers, three horns, a string quartet, keys, bass, lead guitar, percussion, and drums. So the next show will be the whole kit and caboodle.”

As a drummer, Sexton is a world-class talent, having performed or recorded with the likes of En Vogue, Amy Grant, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Branford Marsalis, Kirk Whalum, BeBe Winans, The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra of London, and Stevie Wonder. But last Friday, he was playing for one person in particular: “I just really wanted my dad to hear it,” he notes. “He’s been on me the last three years or so. We’d tried to pull off the show before Covid hit, but it didn’t work out. So, I’m very relieved to have finally gotten the ball rolling, with my pops in attendance.”

The group brought Sexton’s work to life with precision and soul, offering some stunning solos along the way, including Sexton’s own solo turn on the kit as he kept a perfect clave beat with a foot pedal hitting a wood block. Below, Sexton offers his commentary on the intricate, funky pieces he premiered last Friday:

James Sexton (Photo courtesy Crosstown Arts)

• No Limit ‘Cept Yo Limits is “funk inspired, a Prince kinda vibe.”
• A.M. Spired, a compositional highlight, was “inspired by modal jazz of the ’50s and ’60s.”
• Duly Noted. Lesson Learned was based on a “bad experience that’ll never happen again. A mixer of rock and reggae that featured prominent Memphis guitarist Joe Restivo and myself.”
• Get up Sunshine was “inspired by classic vocal jazz ballads, and featured Christian Kirk, the daughter of legendary Memphis jazz pianist Sidney Kirk. It also featured Alvie Givhan on piano and DeAnte Payne on vibes. The message is simply ‘Don’t dim your light. The world needs it.'”
• Eden’s Aura was “inspired by my then five-year-old daughter’s mood swings, and my time playing in a salsa band. Her name is Sarah Eden Sexton. It featured DeAnte Payne, Alvie Givhan, and myself.”
• Got That Good Feelin’ (How bout’ Chu?) was “inspired by my time as a drummer in the The New Orleans Jazz Ramblers. A great tune for a second line dance.”
• The Liberator, sung by Sexton’s brother James “Jennings” Sexton, revealed the importance of the church to Sexton. “This shows my gospel roots. In the Christian faith, Jesus is the door to liberation, in every aspect of life.”
• The Hatchling, a title Sexton said referred to himself, is “an up-tempo jazz fusion tune, inspired by artists like James Brown, Tower of Power, or the Dave Weckl Band. There’s a fusion version of a James Brown tune called ‘The Chicken,’ and this would be my version of an updated spin off.”

New Memphis Colorways: Fueled by Fusion

“Jazz” is a big word, and can cover so many approaches to music that it may have lost all its descriptive power. That is especially true if one follows the music’s history into the 1970s and beyond. After traditional forms were blown wide open in the 1960s (with the ascendance of free jazz), the music’s influences and reference points became so far-flung that any noise, texture, or groove was fair game.

Anything being fair game is a good motto for the latest album by New Memphis Colorways, It is What it Isn’t, set to be self-released on May 21st. As the catch-all name for the various musical projects of virtuoso Paul Taylor, New Memphis Colorways has always considered the world fair game, of course, ranging from tightly woven power pop of The Music Stands to the stomping, almost surfing groove rock of Old Forest Loop.

Most of those earlier projects showed off Taylor’s inventiveness with a dollop of genre-appropriate restraint, his self-accompaniment on multiple instruments always in service of the song. But what restraints are in play when the song is jazz-funk fusion? Those are mostly the restraints demanded by each song’s groove, even as solo instruments take unfettered flight. Yea verily, this is the album where Taylor lets his freak flag fly high.

Imagining some of Herbie Hancock’s finest work from the late 70s or 80s, from Man-Child to Future Shock, will put you in the ballpark. It’s not that none of the players (all Taylor, in this case) show restraint; an effective groove requires that sense of space. It’s rather that the direction of the melodies, instrumentation, and breakdowns could surprise you with any new development at any time.

And that’s exactly what awaits listeners of It is What it Isn’t. Just take the lead single and video, “Hangover Funk.”

Video game skronks give way to the solidest of grooves, backing up some smooth/tweaked keyboard chords. Is this Herbie Hancock or George Clinton? Or Pac Man, perhaps? None of the above: this is New Memphis Colorways.

It’s first-rate funk (and excellent party music, by the way), all the better to undergird a full-on rock guitar solo that screams “good times,” which anything evoking the 1970s surely must. As the opening track of the album, it’s perfect, and sets the tone for much of what is to follow. But, having set the inventiveness bar so high from the top, what follows is essentially more funky unpredictability and more expressive synth and guitar playing.

One surprise, even in this cornucopia of surprises, is Taylor’s treatment of the jazz standard, “All the Things You Are.” It’s played with a jazzer’s sensitivity to the delicate harmonies, but what really sets it apart is the singing voice run through a vocoder. It’s as if Laurie Anderson’s “O Superman” suddenly fell in love. And in combining the sci-fi iciness of a synthetic vocoder with such a chestnut of the 1930s, an eerie, Blade Runner-esque world is conjured up, perfect for our current moment in history. It’s that restless inventiveness that keeps this from being a retro fashion accessory, and propels it into a fusion work of the highest order.