Ugly Beauty: The Month In Jazz – September 2018
Jonathan Goldberger/JP Schlegelmilch/Jim Black, Visitors (Skirl)
The organ trio is one of the great gifts jazz has given the world. Whether it was Jimmy Smith and Wes Montgomery, or Grant Green and Big John Patton, the combination – when joined a properly funky drummer – is irresistible. Well, guitarist Jonathan Goldberger, keyboardist JP Schlegelmilch, and drummer Jim Black have found a way to combine classic organ trio whomp with 21st century weirdness on their debut album, Visitors. “Corvus,” the first single, builds from a strange and atmospheric keyboard intro that floats through the room like a toxic cloud to some seriously stinging barbed-wire blues guitar, and eventually some harsh interactions develop between the two men, creating a surging, aggro groove, all driven by Black’s rock-solid drumming. This is definitely a studio record; there are a lot of layers. But it all comes together into something organic and deeply felt.