Jeff Jenkins Organization: The Arrival

The jazz organ trio is such a durable format. It can play the greasiest greens or the most well-scrubbed church music and it all still sounds as if hand delivered by the Divine. Keyboardist Jeff Jenkins, equally adept on piano as Hammond B3 organ uses the format in both parts of his musical life, one as a teacher at the University of Colorado and as an actual gigging musicians. After recording for various labels, Jenkins was taken in by the OA2 imprint and debuts his organ trio The Organization on The Arrival.

Jenkins is fearless in addressing work other than his own. On The Arrival, he performs covers of guitarist Dave Corbus' "For the Kidz" (Corbus playing on this recording) and The Turtles' 1967 "Happy Together." On the latter, Jenkins and Corbus fashion a slightly dissonant counterpoint for the head portion of the arrangement before taking the solo sections into genre-and time-bending places. Corbus draws the funk from the piece while Jenkins employs the complete tonal arsenal of the B3. Jenkins have a fearlessness in his establishing new "standards" that is both edgy and smart.