Album review: TOMMY EMMANUEL & MARTIN TAYLOR – The Colonel And The Governor

Mesa/Bluemoon Records [Release Date 4.3.2013]

So, what happens when you put together one of the finest jazz guitarists in the world with one of the greatest finger-style fretmeisters around?

Well the answer is…. not quite what you would think.

Martin Taylor is, without doubt, the foremost jazz guitarist of his generation and his previous collaborations with the likes of Martin Carthy et al on ‘Martins 4’ and Gordon Giltrap have been wonderful displays of six-string virtuosity coupled with a varied palette of genres.

Tommy Emmanuel is also a fabulously gifted and technically brilliant acoustic guitarist whose live shows play to packed audiences throughout the world.

So you would expect that when the two of them got together it would be a case of ‘light the blue touch-paper and retire’.

Well it doesn’t quite work out that way.

The album’s title gives the game away a little – ‘The Colonel and The Governor’ suggesting a smug-fest delivered by egos of gargantuan proportions.

And whilst this couldn’t be further from the truth in reality (I’ve seen them both perform and they’re top blokes), the distinct impression that comes across is a scene from The Fast Show’s ‘Jazz Club’ where the musicians, introduced by the laid-back Louis Balfour (“nice”), smile and nod to each other, consumed by their own brilliance.

You can even hear the odd “yeah”, “oooh Tommy” and “uh-huh” in the background.

Although the guitar playing is absolutely brilliant, the fourteen tracks tend to blend together into an amorphous soup of jazz-lite work-outs that members of the flotation tank set would relax to rather than the challenging, edgy, out-there material that these guys are definitely more than capable of.

It has its moments – the beautiful ‘One Day’, the cod-reggae of ‘Down At Cocomo’s’, the melancholia of ‘The Fair Haired Child’ and the technically brilliant ‘Secret Love’ are all stand-outs – but it is significant that these tracks are where they wrestle themselves free from the straitjacket of ‘lounge jazz’.

For lovers of jazz guitar this is probably a must-have, for the rest of us the overwhelming feeling is one of a missed opportunity.

If there is a next time they should give safety the swerve and take a few risks.

I think then Louis Balfour would give it a “great”…

***

Review by Alan Jones

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