Grammy-nominated keyboardist, composer, and producer
John Carroll Kirby's presence has graced dozens of recordings from the current generation of pop hitmakers, but his most compelling work has appeared on his own albums. The restless theme of "elsewhere" ribbons through much of his recorded work. 2017's
Travel was conceived in Tokyo, written in Belize, and recorded in L.A.
Tuscany, a solo piano album composed in Pietrasanta, Italy, alternately reflected the influence and technique of Ethiopian pianist
Emahoy Tsegue-Maryam Guebrou and offered an elegy for the victims of the Sant'Anna di Stazzema massacre during WWII.
Conflict, a series of minimal piano and electronic works, offered reflections on the topic across history and geography. The masterful solo work
My Garden had otherworldly, exotic reflections of
Kirby's personal Los Angeles.
Septet went "elsewhere" as a full modern jazz band created a 21st century electro-futurist evocation of 1970s jazz-funk.
Dance Ancestral's sunny, idiosyncratic approach to spiritual esotericism journeyed the astral plane with funky optimism. That brings us to
Blowout, easily the most exotic-sounding album in
Kirby's catalog.
In 2021,
Kirby visited Puerto Viejo, Costa Rica, to film an episode of Kirby's Gold, his web travelogue series with the
Kawe Calypso Band. He wrote the album between the early-morning birdsongs of the oropendola, jamming with local calypso legends, experiencing spectacular sunsets, and surreptitiously playing
Bob Marley covers and standards in bars.
Kirby recorded
Blowout in Los Angeles with a stripped-down core band at 64 Sound Studios.
Single and opener "Oropendola" is bright, lithe, and funky. An homage to the birds that woke him each morning, its cut time groove frames an infectious melody delivered by a rambling key bass and sunny,
Stevie Wonder-esque keyboard funk. It's appended with contemporary jazz flute and cascading Latin and Afro-Latin rhythms -- some courtesy of a primitive analog Wurlitzer drum machine from 1959! "Mates" melds Cuban son to a sultry, Brazilian samba melody provided by layered flutes. "Hotel Jonny Chingas" is all electronic, with synths, organs, and Rhodes pianos woven together atop a swaggering bass and squelching lines from his bank of keyboards framing circular claves and bata and conga drums.
Kirby claims composer, multi-instrumentalist, and bandleader
Hermeto Pascoal as a primary influence. "Sun Go Down" illustrates that influence, juxtaposing Afro-Latin polyrhythms with contemporary jazz harmony atop an Asian-inspired melody. The trippy, celebratory "Gecko Sound" begins as an exercise in syncopated synth abstraction but evolves to seemingly embody the compositional and groove signatures of
Joe Zawinul with
Weather Report (especially on
Black Market). "Flying Cat" is neo-electro framed by synthetically created steel drum rhythms, tender flutes, and layers of ambient sound and synthetic percussion, in dialogic effect. The album closes with cinematic dub versions of "Mates," "So So So," and "Hotel Jonny Chingas" (the latter clearly inspired by the rhythm track for
War's "Low Rider"). Taken as a whole,
Blowout is
Kirby's most adventurous record as well as his most accessible, thanks to hip arrangements, imaginative compositions, and focused, expert musicianship. ~ Thom Jurek
