Jared Gold: Intuition

Intuition is organist Jared Gold's sixth outing for the Posi-Tone label in as many years. He walks a similar path on all of his prior dates for this imprint, extending the organ group tradition(s) while fronting trios and quartets and working his way through catchy originals and diverse covers, but no two albums are really the same. Part of the reason for this has to do with his personal growth as an artist, but the more significant factor surrounds the shuffling of personnel; Gold has never used the same combination of musicians on more than one album, so he's never had to worry about falling into a same-old-sound rut.

Some people have popped up on more than one of his records, like guitarist Ed Cherry and drummer Mark Ferber, but never as part of the same unit. Both musicians who join Gold on Intuition—guitarist Dave Stryker and drummer McClenty Hunter—have also appeared with him on different albums in the past, but 2013 seems to be the year they were all destined to join together; Gold and Hunter also appear on Stryker's Blue To The Bone IV (SteepleChase, 2013), which hit shelves shortly before this album.

Four Gold pieces, two Stryker songs, a pair of classics from Carole King's landmark, Tapestry (Epic, 1971), and a fusion-y take on Victor Assis Brasil's "Pro Zeca" make up the program, which starts off on mundane ground but gets better with each number. The first two pieces on the album—King's "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?" and Gold's "The Crusher"—begin with some promising ideas but take turns toward the pedestrian during swing-backed solo sections. The third song—Brasil's "Pro Zeca"—comes off like a '70s Chick Corea tune performed at Carnaval; this performance turns everything around. The music that follows is full of energy and enthusiasm of the funky ("Hoopin' On Sundays"), soulful ("You've Got A Friend") and feisty ("Shadowboxing") varieties. Things do take a mellow turn on the penultimate performance ("As It Were"), but it's a welcome respite from the heat at that point in the album.

It's not clear whether musician's intuition or other factors led Gold to select these men for this project, but they were the right choice. Together, Gold, Stryker and Hunter have a blast, and their enthusiasm is contagious.