11/06/2024
Many thanks to the revered critic Mauro Zambellini for his enthusiastic words after the pre-listening of J. & F. BAND'S "STAR MOTEL" record (available for pre-order on our Bandcamp page!). Here they are:
"The J&F Band's fourth album will be released at the end of the month and, frankly, it's a bomb. The collective which counts on Italian and American musicians including the drummer Tiziano Tononi, the percussionist ex Allman Jaimoe, the bassist Joe Fonda, the guitarist David Grissom, the keyboardist Paolo Durante, the singer Bobby Lee Rodgers and others this time went beyond the best expectations, although to be honest even the previous albums were already really good, especially Me and The Devil. The formula is the same but saying this is a limitation because their music comes from live performances where jazz improvisation is based on very specific rock and blues references and bases, on this occasion a very particular reinterpretation of the well-known Route 66 by almost ten minutes, an equally incandescent You Keep Me Running by Jimmy Reed lasting over 15 minutes where Jon Irabagon's sax goes crazy as if we were at the Village Vanguard and a distorted and unrecognizable Take The Highway by the Marshall Tucker Band which takes you to a place where you never thought about going. But there are also original compositions and a sound dynamic always ready to surprise and amaze with its inventiveness... Under the production of the tireless Fabrizio Perissinotto who gathered everyone in the Firehouse 12 studio in New Haven, Connecticut, the place where they go to record great flower of American musicians, this time the J&F Band has decided to divide Star Motel, a splendid cover of an on the road mood with the subtitle An American Music Experience, into two parts: the first CD with six mostly sung tracks where jazz is the instrument for playing blues and rock in a different way according to an attitude that was mastered by the Allmans, the second CD where the ensemble indulges in instrumentals following the concept of a Mingus Medley through a jam of passion, technique, feeling, inventiveness , risks and rigor in that dimension that is typical of creating together without friction and hierarchies. A double album that goes beyond the boundaries of genres in a declaration of luminous and exhilarating universal music. Listen to believe". (picture by David Apuzzo)
