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Denander & Gaitsch - Counterparts (1998)(guitar orientated Fusion/prog)

Respected US session player and solo artist Bruce Gaitsch and Sweden’s Tommy Denander (also a session veteran, in some way’s Gaitsch’s Swedish equivalent) first came together on Fee Waybill’s "Don’t be Scared by these Hands" solo album. They’ve continued working together for some time, and now have a full album out.

On the opening "Quality Time", it’s kind of what you’d expect: an interesting mix of styles. Denander sounds like a flashy Steve Lukather influenced version of Joe Satriani, while Gaitsch provides a much more introverted character in the vein of Lee Ritenour with elements of his playing leading right back to Wes Montgomery. "Hellevator Music" keeps up the momentum and sounds like a very Toto-originated version of fusion rock. The Toto feel continues "Sirens" which if presented to me as out-take from "The Seventh Ones" sessions would be perfectly believable.

Bill Champlin puts in an appearance on the only vocal track, "Crawfish Blues" – how many reviews does he want to get mentioned in anyway! Somehow the vocals don’t quite fit on that one, and it’s the first time that I notice the distraction of the programmed percussion. "Long Distance" seems to be reworking some of the themes from the previous tracks and is not sufficiently varied. However, "Falcon’s Groove" is all about mixing hard and soft textures, in a way you don’t often in hear in a fusion environment.

The two are also capable of putting their dexterity to one side and rocking down a bit on "Steamrollin’". It’s pretty good, but it would have really smoked with a real drummer and bass player…. It’s own counterbalance would be "Secret" which sounds more like Lee Ritenour (a la "Wes Bound") than any of the other tracks. I like it a lot but maybe isn’t the most accessible for a rock based audience, but it does have lots of long-term strength qualities.

An exceptional jazz guitar album that has all sorts of fresh vigour inserted into it by the upstart Denander who is the catalyst in mixing together different, unexpected influences. The end result is more than the sum of its parts – if you’re never really been exposed to jazz guitar workouts then this would be a tremendous starting point, holding together the more directness of hard rock (from Denander) and layers and layers of subtleties from Gaitsch. It also highlights the fusion backbone behind much of the sort of music that Toto has produced over the years. The only downside is that all the programming eventually gets fatiguing and at its worst leaves it with a rather "work in progress" feel.

Tracks:
01. Quality time
02. Hellavator music
03. Crawfish blues
04. Sirens
05. Long distance
06. Falcons groove
07. Steamrollin'
08. Fretwalking
09. The secret
10. Unspoken joy
11. Never forget you

TIP: Track 5 !!!!!! HEERLIJK GITAARWERK !!!!

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