Cicero Nights

Blue Earth Sound is a Chicago jazz project led by composer and multi-instrumentalist James Weir. Cicero Nights is his debut leader date after playing in many bands on the Windy City scene. His accompanists include drummer Patch Romanowski and flutist/saxophonist Eamonn Prizy, with Will Miller playing trumpet, Michael Wells on guitar, Jackson Ramsey on strings, and percussionists Alex Aguero and Joshua Wells. Weir plays piano, Rhodes organ, Wurlitzer, guitar, and bass. He wrote and arranged this intimate brew of lyric, contemporary jazz, psychedelic soul, club, and library music with slinky funk and hip-hop grooves. Recording and mixing engineer Dave Vettraino housed the band at International Anthems Warehouse studio, though further sessions were cut at Little Village Studio and the Mango Pit. Strings were recorded in St. Louis. Consisting of eight Weir originals, the sets brevity -– its just over 30 minutes -– ensures theres no fat. Opener and single "Mariposa" is introduced by a lilting flute before Weir adds an upper-middle register piano vamp. A sleek bassline paces a shuffling trap kit, trumpet colors the melody framed by wah-wah guitar, and psychedelic strings carry it aloft. In the title track, guitar, punchy, breaking drums, and rubbery bass buoy Weirs keys that articulate a four-note vamp colored by sweeping trumpet, saxophone, and wafting strings. Following is the gorgeous "Half & Half" that offers a walk through smooth, spacy, contemporary jazz meeting psychedelic soul and swing. One can hear the influence of arranger Richard Evans in the strings and effects-laden guitar. "Lovers Rock" sounds like what might happen if Charles Stepney produced a CTI studio session. A summery flute warmly hovers above the pronounced R&B backbeat; Wurlitzer, strings, and bass almost envelop them in groove. The flute solo recalls the human voice, while the chord progression begins a swelling crescendo. "Gias Point" embodies the modern Chicago jazz aesthetic with a circular vamp and reverbed trumpet blowing lyric and solo simultaneously over a shimmering string backdrop as snare and hi-hat shuffle atop the Rhodes flooding the backdrop. "On the Court" weaves tenor saxophone atop a funk backbeat and single-string wah-wah guitar, as bass and Wurlitzer carry the vamp. "Phrases" weds dub-style production to hip-hop drums, saxes, and bass: they twin the lyric melody as keys deliver a sultry, atmospheric backdrop. "Walking at Night" is a strolling, piano-and-Rhodes-fueled ballad. Bass, washed cymbals, and snare frame the shuffling breakbeat and the other instruments become painterly. Cicero Nights is a glorious, modern musical exercise that straddles fences between contemporary and spiritual soul, modern jazz, neo-psychedelia, funk, and hip-hop. Deliberately brief, it leaves listeners wanting (much) more. ~ Thom Jurek