333maxwell - Post War Dreaming

Hear The Track Here

Chas Holman (aka 333maxwell) is a bit of a jazz freak, as indeed am I. In the (counts fingers) four reviews I have written about this Zimbabwe based musician, he has continued to interest and intrigue me but not delivering the knockout blow until I reviewed Carousel (August 2008) a Beatle influenced track that got a well deserved Must Have from me. Of course, its a rare artist who can keep up that kind of pace but 333maxwell has more than shown that he certainly has the knowledge and capacity to be that good.

Billed quite accurately as Lounge Jazz, Post War Dreaming has a nice understated feel that grabbed me from the start, but I do like this kind of material. Where IMHO it doesn't work is when you concentrate more on the actual notes being played and let the instruments take care of themselves. What I mean by that is that the tone and texture of the instruments are equally as important, especially to get the right kind of atmosphere - an essential ingedient being audio fidelity.

Being a perfectionist, Chas even thows in some old vynil cylinder noise because that was state of the art back in the day (of Jazz, that is). Continuing in that vein, the clarinet sound on this breezy, extremely accurate rendition of the post-war musical period is to die for and my own favourite. Now obviously you should have a taste for jazz (and particularly the 1940s/'50s period) to get the most out of this, but almost anyone will appreciate its style and its laid back approach. So accurate he's even got a Wout Steenhuis on slide guitar, and that's a hard trick to pull off.

Top class musical throwback. MUST HAVE jazz.