Five years before his first official album, a young budding guitar talent from Oregon settled into the cutthroat environment of New York City and with no record company knocking down his door, proceeded to lay down a handful of tracks of original tunes, playing all the instruments. He then mixed it and promptly forgot about it, moving on to a now widely appreciated career as both a sideman (Steely Dan, Donald Fagen, Michael Brecker, Chris Potter, etc.) and a leader.
In 2020, this guitarist was reminded of these seminal tracks at the start of his career, tracked down a good copy and decided to present it to you and me without any edits or overdubs to the original mastered product. That guitarist’s name is Wayne Krantz and the name of his ‘true’ first album — finally released in March 2021 — is Music Room 1985 (Abstract Logix).
Not only are these recordings ‘new’ to us, so are the tunes, which aren’t even early versions of songs that appeared later. The production is generic, mid-80’s all the way, there’s no use in pretending that it isn’t. But deadgum if this can’t be dismissed because already at the point, Krantz was displaying a lot of refinement in his songwriting and guitar playing. Those songs are mature and polished yet quite melodic and accessible.
The guitar playing reminds me a bit of Danny Gatton, that tasty blend of rockabilly and jazz. Maybe not as flashy, but that’s not what Krantz was going for here. Tightly interlocking guitar parts that blur the lines between rhythm and lead with little soloing to be found but works well in service of the rich harmonics. Instrumentation is rounded out by bass, some keys and programmed drums.
“Cowboy” (video above) isn’t a County & Western tune but does have some giddy-up and Krantz weaves the layered guitar parts together so well. “Fair” starts with a hypnotic, almost minimalist figure, then segues into another figure that rides on the same lopsided rhythm cycle. The melodicism is so bright and ingratiating on “Becker,” it was only fitting that Krantz added a wordless vocal to the chorus a la Pat Metheny Group of around the same time.
“Pilgrim” and “Nice” continue in the same overall vibe and “Future,” the only slow track (but still has a chorus that slays) rounds out this serving of a half-dozen tracks that collectively run less than half an hour.
Krantz has remained relevant after all these decades because from the start he propelled his craft forward, being open to trying out different styles and approaches. Even his formal debut album Signals from 1990 bears little resemblance to the DIY sessions that preceded it, even though both can be broadly categorized as contemporary rock-jazz.
For contemporary instrumental music, however, Music Room 1985 hits that sweet spot: too spunky to be smooth (jazz) and too hook-filled to be such a chore to dig into. We’ve long known that Wayne Krantz is really good. Now we know that he was really good at the get-go.
Music Room 1985 is now obtainable from Bandcamp.
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