Samoa Wilson & Jim Kweskin – I Just Want To Be Horizontal – CD Review

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Plastic – CD

Surface noise: N/A

Dynamic Range: 4

Stereo Imaging: 4

Image depth/perspective: 4-

Overall frequency response: 4-

Please see here for my comments on reviewing albums.

Track List:

1. After You’ve Gone
2. (I Just Want To Be) Horizontal
3. Trust In Me
4. I Cried For You
5. The Candy Man
6. Inch Worm
7. That’s Life I Guess
8. Until The Real Thing Comes Along
9. Me, Myself And I
10. Our Love Is Here To Stay
11. Kitchen Man
12. At Ebb Tide
13. Lover Come Back To Me
14. Easy To Love
15. He Ain’t Got Rythm
16. I wished On The Moon
17. Someone Turned The Moon Upside Down

Line Up:

• Samoa Wilson – vocals

The Jim Kweskin Band

• Jim Kweskin – Fingerpicking, piano  & vocals
• Titus Vollmer – Lead & rhythm guitar, Hawaiian slide guitar & ukulele
• Mike Davis – Trumpet & Cornet
• Paloma Ohm – Alto sax
• Dennis Litchman – Clarinet, fiddle, mandolin & alto sax
• Sonny Barbato -Piano & accordion
• Mathew Berlin – Bass
• Jeff Brown – Drums
• Sean Read & Maddie Read Clarke – Backing vocals

Background:

This album was engineered by Nik Chinboukas at Spin Recording Studios, Long Island City, NY. It was mixed at TuckerMix, Tarzana, CA by Ryan Tucker and mastered by Chris Keffer at Magnetic North Studio, Beachwood, Ohio. The album was originally released on the Kingswood Records label on June 8th, 2020.

Samoa Wilson continues her decade long collaboration with The Jim Kweskin Band with this range of offerings, from tender ballads and raunchy blues to swinging jazz standards.

As with many studio recordings instruments sounded panned into position within the stereo image, as opposed to using stereo miking techniques. In this case this “panned mono” resulted in a very narrow and cluttered image with virtually no depth, but it was well placed between my speakers. The exceptions to this rule were Samoa’s vocals that were dead center and right out front, the backing vocals that were rather recessed, sounding rather distant and hollow as if they were recorded in a live room, with the kit that was set just a little behind all the instruments. Instrumental placement was solid with good separation, providing a stable stereo image but all appeared in the same horizontal plane. There was no overtly obvious compression nor hum, but very low level white noise was heard on a few of the tracks during quiet passages.

Main instrumental placement was: L>C, clarinet, accordion, guitar/Hawaiian guitar; C, vocals, guitar, violin; C>R, guitar picking, trumpet, saxophone. With the piano imaged front C>R and backing vocals mid L/C to mid R/C. T17 panned the sax to mid L/C.

Musicianship and vocals were tight and enjoyable but were rather limited in their dynamics. Many instrumental solos and breaks abound from the alto sax, trumpet, clarinet, piano and guitar but the recording is really focussed upon Samoa’s vocals. They had plenty of presence with reasonable dynamics, good annunciation and little sibilance, despite the close miking. Unfortunately, on my system, they had an unnaturally hard upper mid-range especially when compared to the male vocals that were reasonably warm and mellow. This edgy mid-range restricted my playback level or vocals became excessively hard.

The kit showed little reverb detail and there are no kit breaks or solos of consequence. Generally most of the kits sound revolved around the snare and well detailed brush work. The hi-hat and cymbals while open, well detailed and clean are not very ‘bright’ and are rarely heard, as was the dull thud from the kick drum. Toms were never apparent.

Acoustic bass was placed dead center, tight and clean but had very little prominence in many of the early tracks until towards the end of the album where it provides a very entertaining solo on T14 and opening on T15, after which it sneaks its way to becoming more prominent in all the remaining tracks.

All instruments sounded very natural having plenty of detail, sparkle and openness. The alto saxes sounded mellow with a clean brassy edge, the clarinet was warm and mellow, both with little key, wind or reed noise. The trumpet too had a clean bright sound with no stridence or tendency to be hard even at elevated listening levels. Despite very realistic sounds none of the instruments had sufficient presence to “appear” in my room. The sax and clarinet often playing together to create a rich harmonious combination. Virtually every track had entertaining sax, clarinet and trumpet solos and breaks, so take your pick.

The piano occupied the forward stereo image from center to right, being in front of everything except the vocals. It had a rich and mellow bottom end with a bright mid range and clean top registers. It had good attack and no key or damper action was noted. It too had very good presence. Good breaks and solos abound on most tracks.

Overall reverb was short and low level providing just sufficient ambience to fill the sound out and provide a little warmth.

All tracks are quite well recorded and musically well performed, providing entertaining performances by all musicians. I am sure that fans of Samoa Wilson and The Jim Kweskin Band will enjoy this album.

Playback note: Reviewed using my Denon DBP A100 over Denon Link 3. Speakers; a stereo pair of Genelec 1038’s and four SVS subs.

Disclosure: This CD was provided by Kari-On Productions for my review. No financial compensation was provided.

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