DEREK TRUCKS | JOYFUL NOISE

Joyful Noise is kind of like the Derek Trucks Band's Bar Mitzvah event - "Today, I am a man" - while in actuality, the band has been off the kiddie menu for quite a while. They've matured in leaps and bounds from their loud long-guitar-solo-drenched, blues-rock shows days. This album and its release on a major label announces the arrival of the Derek Trucks Band as much more than a one-pony show in a carnival's worth of jam-oriented schlock. While Derek spends most of the summer touring with the Allman Brothers, this album should put to rest any notion that Mr. Trucks is satisfied with your standard southern rock repertoire. In fact, there is nary an Allmans-style track on the worldly Joyful Noise. Gospel, soul, and R&B tunes set up a framework for what the Columbia press release calls "world soul" - a chop suey of styles culled from the curried Asian subcontinent to the cumin-zest of Latin America.

The best place to start isn't the title track and CD opening "Joyful Noise," an uplifting church groove that sets the tone for the rest of the album. Rather, we should start with the best; and there is nothing better on this album than the downright chilling "Maki Madni." This Sufi chant, which was originally recorded by Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, was a unique collaboration between the band and Rahat Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan (the former's nephew). The band recorded the tune and sent the tapes to Pakistan where Rahat took his liberties as he sang over the track - in fact it appears that the final result is textured with several overlapping vocal offerings from Ali Khan. The result is some haunting and, dare I say, gorgeous music with Derek's sitar-sounding slide guitar twisting with Rahat's vocals in a spine-tingling double helix. The interaction between guitar and voice, overlaid on a whispered rhythm section must be heard to be fully appreciated; it's worth the price of admission alone.

Other guest appearances really pepper the buffet of musical selections on the disc. Derek's wife, Susan Tedeschi, sits in on the bluesiest number on the bill: "Baby, You're Right" adding a powerful vocal to offset the raunchy slide. Reuben Blades brings a Latin edge to "Kam-ma-lay" which tangos addictive vocals with percussion and Kofi Burbridge's fluttering flute. Solomon Burke is the soul/R&B chef for "Joyful Noise," reminiscing his own work as well as James Brown and Marvin Gaye on the soul-cheese of "Like Anyone Else" and the get-up-and-dance cover of his "Home in Your Heart." Since they have no permanent singer of their own, they wisely chose to pick up some of the best from around the world: Burke, Rahat, Tedeschi and Blades are phenomenal and provide a far-reaching product that a singular vocalist could never achieve.

While the name of the group is Derek Trucks Band, this album goes a long way towards showing that "band" is just as important to the moniker as Derek. Sure, there are blistering slide guitar riffs swarming about like mosquitoes in a swamp to appease any guitar-fiend or Derek Trucks admirer. At the same time, Trucks takes a step back and allows his band mates to shine throughout. Yonrico Scott is as much of a leader of the ensemble as anyone, laying a combined rock-steady rhythm with ubiquitous skillful flourishes - you can almost see his playful facial expressions track after track. Todd Smallie has established himself as indispensable to the band, the ketchup to the band's bacon cheeseburger, his bass playing is never flashy, but it is never out of place. Kofi Burbridge is a glass of fine wine, bringing out the tastiness in each tune, punctuating styles by hopping from B3 organ, electric piano and clavinet. On other tunes, Kofi brings out the best in the DTB with his champagne-bubbly flute playing. This whole band mentality is brought out in tunes like "Every Good Boy": Scott lays out the slinky, funky drums; Smallie's bass pins down the low end in the tradition of 50 years of groove music; Burbridge's organ reminisces Jimmy Smith; all the while Trucks' guitar howls in an wail that both chills and thrills.

One of Derek's greatest strengths is his ability to take something as seemingly one-dimensional as a slide guitar and provide a profound breadth and depth to his music. His guitar-playing is like a sponge which absorbs the music around him - whether it be Blades' swiveling chants, Tedeschi's gritty soulfulness, Burbridge's soul-funky Rhodes piano or Burke's silky smooth crooning - and then squeezes it back out under the careful guidance of Trucks' wise fingers. Even collaborators from beyond this album seemed to have been spying in on the recording sessions. Is that Jimmy Herring playing on Track 9? "Lookout 31" seems to be an homage to the Aquarium Rescue Unit with Yonrico Scott playing Mahavishnu-inspired, death-defying drum beats behind a dizzying combination of clavinet and guitar wanking with Smallie playing catch-up on bass. This seems to be an experiment only slightly out of place with the more tame tracks surrounding it.

In some ways, the CD is all over the place, often bringing a quizzical look to your face like when the menu offering both Tex-Mex and Chinese food from the same establishment appears under your apartment door. But in reality, this recording reflects a wide-range of musical inspiration for Trucks and his band. Instead of mashing them together to be spoon-fed like the baby food equivalent of peas and carrots, the Derek Trucks Band isolates its influences and serves each one up as an individual gourmet treat. If the album's only weakness is its lack of driven focus, perhaps its greatest strength is the promise of all the future albums we will be graced with from Derek and company.

The disc ends with a track simply titled "Frisell," a beautifully, poignant homage to Bill Frisell and his musical ability, in my humble estimation, to capture pure beauty. The song makes me smile broadly, and not only for its sheer profundity or the display of Derek's musical wit. Every time I see or listen to Frisell I think that he is a unique artist that has found a way to encapsulate all music that is truly American - jazz, rock, bluegrass, etc. - and recycle it in a way that is not only unique but utterly captivating. Derek Trucks is on his way toward discovering a similar ability but seemingly has his sights set on greater territories. Joyful Noise is another piece in the puzzle that has him as the heir to much more than the Duane Allman legacy. Godspeed Mr. Trucks.

Aaron Stein
JamBase NYC Correspondent
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