Blowout

About

John Carroll Kirby shares a name with innovative swing-era bassist and chamber-jazz sextet leader John Kirby (1908-1952), though there’s no relation—or is there? The later Kirby studied jazz orchestration and composition with eminent bassist John Clayton, and though he’d shift toward piano and synths and an exploratory brand of instrumental electro-pop, the lessons stuck, evident in Kirby’s gift for mood and atmosphere, tonal balance and hypnotic rhythm. He’s cited Quincy Jones as a role model, and that scans: The sound of <i>Blowout</i>, and of Kirby’s body of work in general, is that of someone playing multiple roles with a producer’s ear, taking strong material to the next level. Quincy’s late-’60s/early-’70s albums for A&M—funky, exuberant, appealingly slick—are certainly a point of reference. .

via Apple Music

The Clerk says

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