The Jelly Jam - The Jelly Jam - 2002
intro
This man never stops. I mean Ty Tabor. A musician that is inside the musical business for many years and that it seems that is now when he is reaching his professional peak. After taking King's X to the light again and after signing a contract with Inside Out the guitarist has taken part of many new and interesting projects. Platypus is maybe the most significant; and also his solo career with the release of several albums, the last one at the same time as this The Jelly Jam called Safety.
The Jelly Jam is almost the same thing as Platypus. The group's members are the same except Derek Sherinian too busy with his planetarium projects. Rod Morgenstein (percussion) and John Myung (bass), are of course, the rest of this band that has become a trio.
review
This is their first album and I think it will make enjoy all the people that still doesn't know the work of Ty Tabor. The print of this guitarist is very significant. He's a musician that has got what only the great musicians have, which is an own and unmistakable style.
For the ones that are not very fans of his music but you know about his work (which is my case), you will find more of the same thing, a record that can be a kind of a repetitive stuff, with a canned sound. For the ones that you don't miss any of his records it's a good album. For the ones who never have heard of it you will find it very good.
As the same Ty says about this CD , it's a work of just rock, it doesn't want to be focused much on the progressive structures, is a raw record, without keyboards, a record very closed to King's X as you can figure.
There are 10 compositions grouped into 3 parts. The first part is the one with the most direct and simple songs. Here they show all their great techniques, not too mush risky but with a nice style and power. "I can't help you", "No remedy", "Nature", "Nature's girl" are the pieces that fills this part.
From the fifth piece "Feeling" the group starts to enlarge the compositions and of course putting some spaces or passages inside where every musician can empty his ideas in it. "Reliving", "The jelly jam" is made of long rooms plenty of soft musical developments that slowly builds the songs.
"I'm the king", "The king's dance" and "Under the three" are the third and the last part. Three medium-tempo compositions where the perfect voices and the guitar playing shine with intensity and give the right end to the record.
conclusion
It's an album of high quality but it hasn't left me satisfied. I don't know how to explain. I suppose I was expecting a CD of progressive music a not and standard hard rock album. It's a music that I've already heard many times before and that doesn't surprise me at all. It's a great record for the ones who start listening to noncommercial music but bored when very few things surprise you. At the end the problem I think it's me, not the record.