Home » Jazz Articles » Album Review » Swami LatePlate (Jamie Saft and Bobby Previte): Doom Jazz

402

Swami LatePlate (Jamie Saft and Bobby Previte): Doom Jazz

By

View read count
Swami LatePlate (Jamie Saft and Bobby Previte): Doom Jazz
Although Jamie Saft is best known as a jazz pianist, especially for his work with various Masada projects, he's a rocker at heart who lists ZZ Top among his favorite bands. Swami LatePlate—his duo with drummer Bobby Previte—seeks to a degree to cross the divide. In one sense a piano trio, with Saft doubling on electric bass, the project borrows as much from heavy rock sensibilities. Their debut album and the first on Saft's new label Veal, falls closer to the jazz side, but the title indicates the process that got them there.

Using doom—a slow, foreboding style of heavy metal—as a template, the duo crafts a set of songs that creeps along powerfully. The themes are simple, generally carried by subdued bass lines and ornamented by the piano like salt on a glacier. What jumps out most is Previte's drumming. Every cymbal vibration and snare snap leaps to the foreground and, with rare exception, decays before the next strike, as much a testament to Previte's assured playing as Saft's engineering. The sound throughout is bright and super present.

Ultimately, the record bears more than a little resemblance to the great and longstanding Australian trio The Necks. Each moment is its own event, each note frozen in amber. Regardless of the rock modeling, the disc is likely to satisfy Saft and Previte's audiences; and given the elegiac, actually beautiful work of some doom bands (the solo piano on Corrupted's "Llenandose de Gusanos," for example), it could appeal to fans of the fringes of metal as well.

Track Listing

Malignant Cloud; The Round-Up; Frank and the Girl; The Forbidden Border; "The Bearded Man Cannot Help You"; Escape; Doom Jazz.

Personnel

Jamie Saft: piano, electric bass; Bobby Previte: drums.

Album information

Title: Doom Jazz | Year Released: 2007 | Record Label: Veal

Tags

Comments


PREVIOUS / NEXT



Bobby Previte Concerts


Support All About Jazz

Get the Jazz Near You newsletter All About Jazz has been a pillar of jazz since 1995, championing it as an art form and, more importantly, supporting the musicians who make it. Our enduring commitment has made "AAJ" one of the most culturally important websites of its kind, read by hundreds of thousands of fans, musicians and industry figures every month.

Go Ad Free!

To maintain our platform while developing new means to foster jazz discovery and connectivity, we need your help. You can become a sustaining member for as little as $20 and in return, we'll immediately hide those pesky ads plus provide access to future articles for a full year. This winning combination vastly improves your AAJ experience and allow us to vigorously build on the pioneering work we first started in 1995. So enjoy an ad-free AAJ experience and help us remain a positive beacon for jazz by making a donation today.

Near

More

People & Places
Marc Seales
All That Matters
Benjie Porecki
PIVOT
Mats Gustafsson / Ken Vandermark / Tomeka Reid /...

Popular

Get more of a good thing!

Our weekly newsletter highlights our top stories, our special offers, and upcoming jazz events near you.

Install All About Jazz

iOS Instructions:

To install this app, follow these steps:

All About Jazz would like to send you notifications

Notifications include timely alerts to content of interest, such as articles, reviews, new features, and more. These can be configured in Settings.