Year: 2007
Record Label: Pearl Jazz Recording Label
Style: Smooth Jazz
Musicians: Andre Marcel Ajamu Akinyele (bass and drum programming), Jon O'Bergh (piano, keyboards and programming), Andrew Foster (percussion), Alex Marks (drums)
Review: The jazz quartet Gemini Soul describes their music as cyber-jazz because of their symbiotic combination of analog sounds and electronic programming. But after listening to their latest release Live: The Liquid Soul Tour, their music is solid smooth jazz through and through with episodes of harmonizing improvisations that may remind you of the chemical conflagrations made by Under The Lake, The Rippingtons and Spyro Gyra.
You fall into Gemini Soul’s melodic webs immediately and may never want to leave. The band seduces you with a casual drift rolling through their rhythms and dulcet notes that are placidly corded and gently layered. The coasting motions of keyboardist Jon O’Bergh and percussionist Andrew Foster are accented by the flexing motions of bassist Andre Marcel Ajamu Akinyele and drummer Alex Marks. Together, they make beautiful music.
All the songs are produced, arranged and performed by Gemini Soul with a handful of remakes, like “Take Five” written by Paul Desmond, “Goodbye” by Gordon Jenkins, “Hang On To Your Love” by Sade Adu and Stuart Matthewman and “Fever” written by Eddie Cooley and John Davenport. Gemini Soul plays certain sections of these tunes directly from the original, but the band also plunges into spasms of cocktail jazz-tempered improvisations which mildly stir up the mixes.
One of the band’s more cyber-jazz induced cocktails is the number “Ancestor’s Dub” with a soul-funk bass line wrapped in striking electronica and softly sprinkled keyboard ringlets. The instrument parts are magnetically connected providing halcyon tones, seraphic verses and smooth jazz decors that surround the listener in a very relaxing and stress-free setting.
You can choose any track from the album and they will all make you feel this way, putting you in a serenely muffed stratosphere. The songs have a melodic consistency which can best describe them as stress-free, which alludes to the intro of the album featuring Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous speech in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC echoing, “We are free. God Almighty! We are free at last.” The songs show an ease of freedom that comes from having a free-thinking mind and lifestyle, which Martin Luther King, Jr. had envisioned in 1963.
Gemini Soul put together an album that vibrates to Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream of having the freedom to move your body and mind where you want to take them. For Gemini Soul, they use their freedom to make beautiful music. Their latest release Live: The Liquid Soul Tour makes a nice addition to their evolving repertoire, which also includes a holiday CD entitled A Cyber-Jazz Holiday. Between you and me, Gemini Soul has the liquid fluidity of smooth jazz from note to note.
Tracks: Gypsy, Fever, LiLi, Pandora’s Boxx “07 Remix,” Hang On To Your Love, Goodbye, In The Mood, Winter, Take Five, Ancestor’s Dub, Supernova “07 Remix,” Lake Merritt
Artist's Website: http://www.geminisoul.net
Listen or Buy: www.cdbaby.com/cd/geminisoul3
Reviewed by:
Susan Frances
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