The Motet - Music For Life

Sound of cool melting glass…echoes of radiating light…plush corridors of elastically protean Jazz-Funk Afro-Beat mutations…Sketches of Colorado by The Motet…
Cheap Shit starts things off as if The Studio is The Club--organic vibe, everyone playing in synch, horns moving the pace into The Zone, and that's just the first song. Power offers a James Brown, Latin groove that swings everyone onto Bourbon Street. The horns are so agile on this cut that it's like 'switchblade-through-butter' efficiency. On Music for Life, Dominic Lalli on tenor and Jon Stewart on alto probe sax duality creating an excitement that toys with volume architecture. In other words: Eight Sick Cuts.

Drummer Dave Watts wrote Six of Eight Jazz/Funk/Afro/Cuban/Heavy & Mellow Beat jam vehicles. Percussionist Scott Messersmith adds meaty sonic textures to the multi-faceted road show. Garrett Sayers cruises an Autobahn Bass on a cool evening playing with the various colors floating around him. Guitarist Mark Donovan juggles melody, groove, and his own patient muse charging the songs with nitro gazelle abandon.

Keyboardist Greg Raymond penned Tracks 3 and 7...Black Hat, Track 3, segues into The Music Way for the first extended euphoria of the trip...monumental dip from some tall river mountain cliff into the warm waters of The Music Way...epic! Raymond offers melodic ideas circling the spectacular sax solos; the rhythm section manufactures decibel portraits that flow according to mood--the jam map has long since been thrown out of the van. Mid-song, The Music Way increases its speed and visuals race past-- motorcycle on a two-lane, tree-lined mountain road...80, 90 MPH...air on fire, no place to go but ever onwards. Donovan, as he does throughout, springs forward...funk and wah wah and spirited rhythm notes underlining the deep groove...Raymond explores the sonic jungle with a smooth machete of ricochet assault.

The mood of Fearless transforms the listener into drunken land sailor terrain swaying between Bourbon Street and Rio de Janeiro. Watts, Messersmith and Dovovan explore the Afro/Cuba Beat while Raymond layers the tune with a rich mosaic, and the horns kick everything a mile high. Corpocratic wails in 21st Century Disco Electronica...Mark Donovan reels out a beautiful post-modern Django Reinhardt solo...the whole band then kicks in for a breakneck taste of Colorado that whispers hypnotic fury. What's the Purpose, penned by Raymond, showcases masterful keys and sax interplay with percussion interludes that ramp The Motet up another level...a whiplash take on Cuban P-Funk Miles Davis Overdrive--Them or Us--finishes the trip for the Boulder group...

Escape from Colorado...sweet language... built from the liquid notes of experienced musicianship-layered multi-toned exotica...music for life...

- Randy Ray