Jay Soto五岁开始学鼓,七岁学古典钢琴,但直到12岁才找到了自己最喜爱的 乐器,吉他。自那以后,Jay Soto对音乐的兴趣不断增长。 2005年,Jay发行 了他的第一张专辑《Long Time Coming》,随后2007年,又发行了第二张专辑 《Stay Awhile》。2009年,Jay带来了阔别两年的全新大碟《Mesmerized》。
Smooth Jazz Therapy has been a fan of award winning guitarist Jay Soto since 2005 and the release of his debut album ‘Long Time Coming’. At the time I described it as an astonishing collection of ultra commercial smooth jazz tunes with ‘radio ready’ stamped all over several of them and when in 2007 he followed it up with ‘Stay Awhile’ I was again totally captivated. Helped in no small part by the formidable line up of guest contributors that Soto assembled to perform with him ‘Stay Awhile’ quickly found its way into the upper echelons of the smooth jazz chart and now he is back with the highly anticipated ‘Mesmerized’. His second release on the nuGroove label, it features eleven self penned numbers and, with production credits on seven of them, is an indicator of his rapidly increasing musical maturity. Not only that, and doubly important in these stressful credit crunched times, ‘Mesmerized’ is replete with the kind of sunshine sounds that are guaranteed to put a smile back on your face.
This feel good factor is immediately to the fore with the albums opening track, the delightful ‘Fascination’. It serves as a metaphor for everything that follows and in this respect is in the excellent company of the first track to go to radio, the aptly titled ‘Groovalicious’. A typical slice of Jay Soto ‘in your face’ smooth jazz it is driven along by his funky playing and given depth by a brass section generated by Darren and Jason Rahn. Elsewhere, but with that same warm feeling, the Michael Broening produced ‘Diggin It’ is funky, in the pocket and with all the rhythm and melody you will ever need. In fact, hing won a Grammy in 2007 for his work on the George Benson hit ‘Mornin’, Broening has quite a pedigree and when he returns to lend his production magic to the onomatopoetic ‘Sunday Smile’ the interplay it engenders between Soto and saxman Bryne Donaldson is nothing short of sensational. Broening’s final contribution is for the almost indecently catchy ‘A Love Like Mine’ for which Donaldson again comes up big and it is Mark Dolin on soprano sax who adds significantly to the sumptuously mid tempo ‘Dreamsville’.
Dolin is in equally fine form for the tantalizingly reflective ‘Together At Last’ which Soto nails to perfection but, as he once more notches up the tempo, his intricate playing for the infectious title track combines with great backing vocals from Jodi Light to deliver a real smooth jazz stunner.
Soto uses ‘Oasis’ to keep the groove decidedly electric and although ‘Bayou Blues’ is incredibly tight it reverberates with an earthiness that is entirely appealing. That said, for an album that bursts with energy throughout, the appositely named ‘Cacophony’ provides a fittingly ‘off the chain’ finale. Into the bargain it finds nuGroove label mate Dominic Amato blowing up a storm on sax, Broening sounding great on organ and Mel Brown, as he does for the entire CD, making a massive impact on bass.
‘Mesmerized’ is a high octane collection of the highest order and further cements the position of Jay Soto in the major league of smooth jazz guitarists.
01 Fascination (03:51) 02 A Love Like Mine (03:54) 03 Oasis (03:26)) 04 Groovalicious (03:43) 05 Together At Last (04:23) 06 Diggin' It (03:59) 07 Sunday Smile (03:45) 08 Mesmerized (03:37) 09 Dreamsville (04:14) 10 Bayou Blues (03:17) 11 Cocophony (04:42)