Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Howe, Greg
Label: Bad Racket
Release: 2017
Duration: 44:43
Rating: 4.5/5
Anyone who knows Greg Howe also follows guitarists like Allan Holdsworth on one side and, say, Richie Kotzen on the other. Sadly, the former is no longer with us, while we’ll come back to the latter later in this write-up. So, after quite a while, Greg Howe is back with a new solo album. And what an album: it’s an almost entirely instrumental jazz record! Nine years after the release of »Soundproof«, here’s a bundle of fresh, strikingly distinctive and polished compositions from this out-of-the-ordinary musician and guitar wizard, who has played on countless studio albums for all sorts of artists. To name just the most prominent names on the international music scene: Michael Jackson, Justin Timberlake, ‘N Sync, Enrique Iglesias, Jason Becker, Richie Kotzen, Vitalij Kuprij, Jordan Rudess, Tetsuo Sakurai and others.
For »Wheelhouse«, Howe initially had a vocal album in mind, but in the end only a single vocal track landed on it (Shady Lane), which Greg and his brother wrote more than twenty years ago. On this tune, the solo and lead vocals come from Richie Kotzen (solo, The Winery Dogs, Mr. Big, Poison), an old Howe buddy with whom he once put out two albums together. Since the track sticks out a mile from everything else on this record, it’s logically tacked onto the very tail end, and both Howe and Kotzen »blow up« with a solo each, while Kotzen’s sensitive vocal performance shines once again.
The rest of the album is taken up by eight fully instrumental compositions. Last year Howe toured Europe with Stu Hamm, with Hungarian drummer Zoltan Cszorz keeping them company. They played instrumental music only. That surely gave Howe extra motivation and fired him up to record an instrumental album. And this rediscovered fascination with instrumental music most likely helped land him a spot in Protocol too, as the illustrious drumming giant Simon Phillips himself called Howe up. Well, soon after this album came out, Howe also headed off on a North American tour, where bassist Stu Hamm and drummer Gianluca Palmieri helped him present it.
As mentioned, »Whitehouse« is a thoroughly genre- and style-layered affair, and witty from start to finish. Howe teasingly drops a dose of sparkling lucidity into his solo noodling, which never runs out of dynamite or a common thread. He brings in that moment of unpredictability and spontaneous development. It sounds highly refined, with organic shades, and the motif foundation the improvising rests on is often tinted with tempting acoustics too. It can be seasoned with distorted sounds as well, but Howe is nowhere near reaching for the shredding of MacAlpine, Becker or Friedman. He keeps at least one foot in fine variations of jazzy softness all the way through, even when a track »rumbles« in a rock way.
So this is a top-notch instrumental jazz album, specifically one fused with other genres. The opener Tempest Pulse is a hugely adventurous composition whose oddness evokes Howe’s enthusiasm for Latin elements from Cuban music, glittering through the jazzy variations of the piece. Next up, 2 In 1 surprises with a totally different design and compositional approach. It’s a track weighed down by a funk premise (Howe returns to funk near the end in Let it Slip), while not hiding some invasive moments of flirting with the traditional gains of forties swing (shortly after the two-minute mark). Throw Down delivers jazz fused with blues and rock, the decibel count goes up, and the track gives a direct answer to why Howe and Kotzen always got along so well. Then there’s the at times ethereal Landslide, which stirs up progressive adventurousness. It’s probably even the centerpiece of the album, with legendary keyboardist Ronnie Foster (Stevie Wonder, George Benson) joining in on keys. The album also flirts with the melos of world music. Besides the aforementioned Tempest Pulse, Push On is another such track.
In short, »Wheelhouse« is an exceptionally flowing album, full of shrewd ideas with a confessional character, packaged into nine solidly tangible compositional conglomerates. Greg Howe’s playing is adorned with exceptionally virtuosic inventiveness, and in these very moments of improvisation the guitarist is so markedly unpredictable and so thrilling in his hand skills that »Wheelhouse« becomes shockingly infectious and interesting precisely because of that. That’s why this album is an exceptional magnet for listening, one that doesn’t let up in expressiveness from start to finish. It’s an album you keep discovering over time and that delights you again and again. You’ll be lifting its details away veil by veil, and the music will leave you thrilled and enchanted. Let’s hope Howe carries this inspiration over to another solo studio album, which we hope will be instrumental again. This is a bravura piece of work by a great perfectionist and an unsuspectedly masterful craftsman. By the way, plenty of the ideas you hear here could easily have found a home on one of Simon Phillips’ albums with his Protocol.
Lineup
Greg Howe – guitar, bass guitar, programming
Stu Hamm – bass guitar
Gianluca Palmieri – drums
Riiche Kotzen – vocals, guitar on track no. 9
Ronnie Foster – keyboards on tracks no. no. 2 and 4
Production
Greg Howe
Tracklist
01. Tempest Pulse (5:20)
02. 2 in 1 (6:05)
03. Throw Down (4:25)
04. Landslide (6:22)
05. Key to Open (1:50)
06. Push On (4:40)
07. Let It Slip (5:00)
08. I Wonder (5:06)
09. Shady Lane (feat. Richie Kotzen) (5:48)
