Customer Reviews

After Dark

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Octobop calls themselves a new West Coast Jazz group but WCJ slides comfortably into the genre of Lounge and this album fits easily into the shelves of my Lounge collection. Think George Shearing and Cal Tjader in their gently swinging, martini bar modes or Henry Mancini being Pink Pantherish and you'll have a good idea of the tenor of their style. Also, if you're familiar with the work of Proteus 7, you'll find Octobop's style similar although to my ears, Octobop plays with a little greater sense of style and uses more creative arrangements.

Sometimes the simpler formulas in music produce the best results and Octobop's formula is fairly simple. Start with eight crack musicians (Octo equals eight), all of whom are dynamite on their instruments, give them light, stylish, jazzy material which is sometimes familiar, sometimes fresh, ...and turn them loose. This is one of those albums where everyone sounds like they had a great time making it. All of these arrangements have an buoyant, uplifted swing to them, but nothing is ever frenetic or overwrought. And even the few slower numbers have enough of a pulse underneath that they stay comfortably in the range of jazz and never turn into easy listening. Several of the guys play two or three instruments so, while the tunes are mostly brass oriented, there is a good variety to the sounds and the Loungey vibes and bluesy saxophone, always backed up with a subtle rhythm section, are never out of the picture too long. A number of the less familiar numbers have a quirky, "catchy tunes" quality to them and one in particular, "Have you hugged your Martian today?", will be stuck in your head for days afterward. Another is featured fairly often on Java's Bachelor Pad, a Lounge music broadcast provided by one of the on-line radio stations. The disc runs a little over fifty five minutes and so represents good value as well.

To ice the cake, the sonics are good too. Although done in the studio, and thus being devoid of distracting audience noises, the slightly close in acoustic manages to suggest the up-close ambiance of an intimate jazz club somewhere, where you would be well pleased to encounter Octobop for your evening's entertainment. (A group this size would really be more likely to appear in a small auditorium, but their playing still manages to suggest the friendly coziness of a jazz club.)

This review is beginning to sound like a puff piece for this album but that's all right. These guys are sharp and this album deserves to be much more widely known. I've listened to it a number of times and it's luster hasn't dimmed a bit.