Daggerboard & The Skipper: Daggerboard And the Skipper

For those who think they can tell an album's sound by its cover, think again in the case of Daggerboard and The Skipper. That cover art seems to have come from the walls of an inner sanctum of a Pre-Columbian pyramid. So what kind of music will that be?

It is hard to find information on this release. Daggerboard seems to consist of the workings of percussionist/songwriter Gregory Howe and trumpeter/flugelhornist/songwriter Erik Jekabson, of Throttle Elevator Music fame, along with bassist Henry Franklin (aka, The Skipper), guitarist Ross Howe and a string quartet along with vibes and Rhodes piano.

Back to that cover: Pre-Columbian American Music? Hardly. Mid-twentieth century western movie soundtrack is more like it—a lone drifter riding along the New Mexico High Plains, his hat pulled low, twilight darkening the blue sky to a deep violet. It is a wide-open sound, full of broad horizons, Jekabson's horn soaring over a cowboy-themed exotica atmosphere of endless horizons.

The "exotica" tag may hold negative connotations for some. It shouldn't. Like any other genre, it has its half-assed, vapid branchings; but it also ls has its vibrant, skillfully-executed and often understated works of compelling beauty, sometimes of the tropical persuasion, or the outer space way of making sound, or, in the case of the excellent Daggerboard And the Skipper, the way of the movie score for the High Plains drifter riding down off the plateau to the isolated clapboard town at dusk, in search of a saloon where he can wash away dust after a hard day's ride.