nyone familiar with guitarist David Fiuczynski knows to expect the unexpected - who else sometimes plays FRETLESS guitars? His '94 "Lunar Crush" CD with keyboardist and former South Floridian John
Medeski (leader of groove-fusion trio Medeski, Martin & Wood) was a brilliant blur of styles - from jazz to opera to blues. The next year, Fiuczynski's group Screaming Headless Torsos fired a howitzer of a rap/fusion hybrid with their self-titled debut CD. So what surprises await in his solo debut, "JazzPunk"? Just consider that it was called "shocking" by an independent jazz label and had to be won in an out-of-court settlement before Fiuczynski could release it. Imagine if he'd been on Sony.
"JazzPunk" is a collection of covers, with Fiuczynski supported by different rhythm sections, yet each tune has its own original personality. Guitarist Pat Metheny's classic "Bright Size Life" leads off, but is given an energizing drum-and-bass flavor by Fiuczynski, bassist Tim Lefebvre (who cops great underwater tones a la Bootsy Collins) and drummer Zach Danziger. Jimi Hendrix's "Third Stone From the Sun" is lifted even further spaceward with the help of tone-master bassist Fima Ephron, muscular drummer Gene Lake and
percussionist Daniel Sadownick - Screaming Headless Torsos all. Veteran jazz drumming great Billy Hart plays on the classics: Frederic Chopin's "Prelude Opus 28 No. 4," the Billy Strayhorn/Duke Ellington
standard "Star Crossed Lovers," a bending of John Phillip Sousa's best-known piece titled "Stars & Stripes Whenever," and trumpeter Jack Walrath's "Hipgnosis." The results are the most bizzare material that "JazzPunk" has to offer - from point-counterpoint duets with guitar and drums to trio readings with either acoustic bassist Santi DeBriano or cellist Rufus Cappadocia.
But "JazzPunk" is strongest up the middle. Track four is drummer Ronald Shannon Jackson's "Red Warrior," given a hellaciously rhythmic treatment by the Torsos quartet. Fiuczynski's phrasing is
unlike that of any other guitarist, especially when supported by three brilliant musical leftists like these. The same lineup explodes on Chick Corea's "La Fiesta," using an acidic, space-walking intro to set up the Latin 6/8 groove. Fiuczynski tests his bop chops; Sadownick goes berserk, and Ephron and Lake provide eight minutes of colossal bottom. In between, Lefebvre and Danziger push Fiuczynski's
wah-wah quotes for an all-too-brief two minutes in George Russell's "African Game Fragment."
"JazzPunk" IS shocking, but that's the point - to shock anyone who isn't aware that there are approaches different from the norm. Some musicians abide by the rules; those like Fiuczynski create new ones. Somewhere, Jaco Pastorius is smiling.
nyone familiar with guitarist David Fiuczynski knows to expect the unexpected - who else sometimes plays FRETLESS guitars? His '94 "Lunar Crush" CD with keyboardist and former South Floridian John
Medeski (leader of groove-fusion trio Medeski, Martin & Wood) was a brilliant blur of styles - from jazz to opera to blues. The next year, Fiuczynski's group Screaming Headless Torsos fired a howitzer of a rap/fusion hybrid with their self-titled debut CD. So what surprises await in his solo debut, "JazzPunk"? Just consider that it was called "shocking" by an independent jazz label and had to be won in an out-of-court settlement before Fiuczynski could release it. Imagine if he'd been on Sony.