Sunday Slow Jam Vol.97 – Blues Straight Up

Steve Kaldestad is one of Vancouver’s musical treasures! He is a fearless player with three fantastic albums of his own and is also featured with notable groups such as Jesse Cahill’s NightCrawlers and the Jodi Proznik Quartet. This week’s Sunday Slow(ish) Jam features a simmering minor blues track called “Blues Straight Up” from Steve’s album with Mike LeDonne (piano), John Webber (bass) and Joe Farnsworth (drums) simply called “Straight Up”.

This tune is something to sink your teeth into. It’s the kind of jazz that proudly shows its roots and isn’t trying to be more complex than it has to be. Don’t get me wrong, it is full of complexities with chord structure, rhythm, solos that reach and climb outside of the box. However, when you listen to “Blues Straight Up” you can hear the deep connection jazz has to the blues and raw human expression, freedom and primal movement. Initially jazz was music to soothe and move people and allowed mostly black listeners and musicians to express themselves without words, just sound and movement, in a time when their civil rights were non existent. This band plays the heck out of this tune and really connects to the pure function emotion and rhythm and reminds us of all that is good and holy.