Doug Wamble's musical persona embodies a virtuoso guitarist, a canny composer, and a contemporary singer/songwriter. In addition to releasing albums that expertly combine blues and jazz, from vintage to modern, he has worked on film scores for
Ken Burns and occupied stages and studios with many top-level artists.
Blues in the Present Tense is
Wamble's first album since 2015's The Traveler: Live in New York City. This longish, eight-song set was co-produced with veteran guitarist
Charlie Drayton and a musical cast of longtime associates: bassist
Eric Revis, drummer
Jeff "Tain" Watts, and saxophonist Prometheus Jenkins (aka
Branford Marsalis). Whether playing acoustic or electric guitar,
Wamble usually eschews effects pedals, favoring a natural, uncompressed sound. His hallmark style marries Memphis blues with jazz harmonics, rhythms, and phrasing.
Opener "Homesick" finds his choppy jazz chords atop
Revis' knotty bassline and staggered, syncopated rhythms from
Watts.
Wamble sings with bemusement about the influence of childhood memories on our adult perspective. His guitar solo weds chunky chordal improvisation to spiky single lines. Jenkins adds a finger-popping tenor solo in the middle eight. "MAGA Brain" emerges on the blues tip with hip interplay from Jenkins and
Watts.
Wamble's fingerpicking is buoyed by unusual chordal riffs that recall
James Blood Ulmer. The lyrics present a scathing indictment of religious hypocrites lobbying for political power. The band comes together for some spectacular conversation around Jenkins' tenor solo. In his guitar break,
Wamble evokes heroes from
T-Bone Walker to
Grant Green. "No Worries" and "If I'm Evil" are also politically motivated. The former is rockist with jazz-striated harmonies and elastic rhythms. A swinging jazz blues in 16 bars, the song offers tight guitar breaks, canny drumming, walking bass, and scathing lyrics. Jenkins' roaring tenor is prodded by
Wamble's staccato chords. Set to an old-timey gospel blues, the latter's lyric concerns close-minded, self-righteous evangelicals who want to dictate our freedoms.
Wamble and
Revis engage in deep blues interplay as Jenkins adds a honking solo. The guitarist revisits "Along the Way" from his 2008 debut
Country Libations, introducing the album's second half. This number features biting slide guitar, moaning vocals, and Jenkins reprising his gutbucket soprano sax solo from the original. It's followed by the gospel-tinged jazz of "Blues for the Praying Man." Following its poignant, resonant verses, the group engages in harmonic and rhythmic conversations that suggest
Ornette Coleman. "Blues to the Unfound" offers more formal jazz considerations with glorious exchanges between guitar, drums, and soprano sax as
Watts glues them together, dancing across the kit. The title track closes with swaying jazz blues tinged with Memphis R&B. Jenkins' tenor fills meet
Wamble's changes just behind the beat as the rhythm section strolls. There isn't a weak second on
Blues in the Present Tense.
Wamble's musical vocabulary draws on the historic and contemporary; it makes these songs about oppression and struggle visceral, provocative, inviting, and at times, profound. If there is an heir to
Mose Allison's brand of jazz blues poetics, it's
Wamble. ~ Thom Jurek