New Release “Sonic” Coming in 2026!

LABEL: Whaling City Sound

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Jim Robitaille uses D’Addario Strings and Planet Wave products, and Chameleon speakers by Buscarino Guitars

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Publicity: The Wanderer, Wicked Local, Wareham Week, The Jazz Word, Jazz Journal, Jazz Weekly,The Patriot Ledger,Bill Copeland Music News, JazzQuad, South Coast Today, Jazz Journal, Cape News, UMASS, All About Jazz

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The stripped down guitar-bass-drums trio format is simultaneously one of the most rewarding and revealing of all six-string scenarios. Think of classic guitar trio albums — Pat Metheny’s Bright Size Life with Jaco Pastorius and Bob Moses, Jim Hall’s Live! with Don Thompson and Terry Clarke, John Scofield’s triumvirate of recordings in the early ‘80s with Steve Swallow and Adam Nussbaum (Bar Talk, Out Like a Light, Shinola). In this keyboard-less setting, a guitarist is charged with carrying the main melody of a tune while also supplying the complex chordal work that makes up the harmonic fabric of a given piece, not to mention contributing potent solos along the way. On Sonic, his eighth album as a leader, Jim Robitaille does all of it admirably on eight originals and two timeless covers.

Joining the Massachusetts-based guitarist-composer on his mission is the versatile rhythm tandem of bassist Tom Casale and drummer Chris Poudrier. Together they offer the kind of nuanced interplay that inspires Robitaille to some lofty heights on Sonic. “We love to have the interaction,” said Robitaille. “They’re very supportive players. They understand without talking about it too much what a composition really needs. They are mindful of keeping the integrity of the piece without overdoing it. But then they are also playing off of each other and being sensitive to all the energy that transfers between us while we play. And we do our best to do all that without trying.”

That kind of intuitive group-think defines Sonic. And yet, this is very much a guitarist’s showcase, with Robitaille tipping his cap to the guitarists who have influenced him over the years while staking out his own territory through his writing and six-string abandon.

On the opening “Stratus,” Jim’s atmospheric guitar synth on the intro may allude to the patented volume swells of guitar hero Allan Holdsworth, and his fluid legato phrasing on his solo here is indeed Holdsworthian. But his tastefully syncopated comping behind Casale’s robust upright solo is positively pianistic, in the tradition of everyone from Joe Pass to Mick Goodrick, Ben Monder and John Stowell. “Over the years there’s been plenty of people who have exploited that kind of chordal playing on the instrument,” he said. “Joe Pass was definitely a huge influence in helping me attain that in my own playing. I used to go see Joe play solo at the Jazz Workshop in Boston in the ‘70s and I studied his Virtuoso transcriptions. He was one of the few guys who really excelled at solo jazz guitar, along with Ted Greene, Bill Harris and Lenny Breau. There have been other many important ones along the way and I was exploring all of them, learning from them. So it was maybe inevitable that I would learn those types of impressionistic voicings that transcend the sound of the guitar a little bit.” And drummer Poudrier, who fuels the intense proceedings throughout, erupts on the kit at the tag.

The delicate waltz-time “Anthem,” the lone track on Sonic with electric bass, is the guitarist’s tribute to his longtime collaborator, the late 6-string electric bassist Bill Miele, who played on Robitaille’s 2020 album, Space Cycles. “Bill’s spirit is just woven into this music because he worked on it so much,” said Robitaille. We played this music in concerts and clubs for a long time. Whether it was a session, a gig or a recording, he was always right there being strong and solid. Music is such a life force, and I know it prolonged his life.”

“The Sea and the Sky” is an evocative number that conjures up a sense of place, just as Metheny’s “Midwestern Nights Dream” did 50 years ago. A dreamy, somewhat pensive number, it floats along in delicate fashion, buoyed by the guitarist’s fluid lines and harmonic probing during his extended soloing. Casale also turns in a deeply resonant bass solo against Robitaille’s fingerstyle chording and shimmering arpeggios. Said Robitaille, “This tune kind of conjured up a picture of something very open and gave me the impression of the sea. I live near the sea, and we all live near the sky, so it had a mood like that.”

The poignant title track is as translucent and compelling as Holdsworth’s “Funnels” from Atavachron. And Jim’s horn-like legato solo here is just as jaw-dropping. “When you can have that fluidity, like a saxophone, but still have it be articulate, where it comes out and it cuts through the mix…that’s basically what I’m going for,” said Robitaille. Casale adds another brilliant upright solo on this refined track.

The darkly beautiful “New Moon” is a beguiling number. “That’s a nocturnal kind of vibe,” said the composer. “I have quite a few of these nocturnal tunes. My writing is a little influenced by Ralph Towner. I was always a big fan of his playing and particularly his writing, which I think is pretty innovative.” Full of cascading lines and containing a distinctly reed-like solo from the leader, this number also showcases bassist Casale on another outstanding upright solo against Robitaille’s pointillistic comping. “Pulse,” fueled by Poudrier’s solid backbeat, finds Robitaille launching into another incredibly fluid solo midway through. “To me, that is a very natural way of playing the guitar,” he said. “It’s almost like speech, how we have a mixture of articulations where you’re pronouncing vowels and consonants and it just seems more natural to have a mixed palette of articulation, which is what I do. I’m picking a lot of the notes that I play but I’m doing it to match the notes that I’m not picking, and vice versa. So I want it to be very even, and I’m emulating the fluidity and the phraseology of different saxophonists that I heard live and played with over my career.” Drummer Poudrier shifts to a swinging undercurrent beneath Casale’s urgent bass solo then returns to a slamming backbeat before exploding on the kit over an intense band ostinato.

The gorgeous John Coltrane ballad “Central Park West,” a tune that has been in Robitaille’s repertoire for years, is given a reverential treatment here by Jim and his colleagues. It opens with a brief, highly impressionistic solo guitar intro before the trio heads into the beloved, calming ballad. “We do a lot of standards when we play live, and we usually take all kinds of liberties with them by incorporating new arrangements,” Robitaille explained. “But this is an example of just pretty much playing the tune as is. It’s a tune that I like to play and have stayed in touch with on gigs.”

The guitarist leans in on the rock-edged “Room 554,” which finds drummer Poudrier switching to mallets midway through the piece for a softer touch on the kit behind Jim’s solo. “Chris is a really a musical drummer,” said Robitaille, “so he’s able to play the quiet, introspective stuff. But he also can bring an explosive dynamic to the music when he needs to. We like to have the full spectrum in this trio. I think my tunes call for that.”

Robitaille’s moody ballad “Sound Origins’ opens with some droning arco bass work by Casale, underscored by the leader’s ambient textures, before shifting to more turbulent terrain. “The beginning is completely free,” he explained, “and it’s got a kind of Close Encounters of the Third Kind motif to it, when the mothership lands. We play that rubato throughout, and then the last section is very aggressive. That’s a completely different energy and it’s just through-composed. There’s no solos or anything, it’s just a very atmospheric kind of piece.”

The collection closes with a loosely swinging interpretation of the Miles classic, “All Blues,” that incorporates some interesting rhythmic hits and other surprises along the way. “It’s more of a set arrangement that we play on gigs,” Robitaille explained. “And it all evolved out of a little cycle that I began playing as a solo guitar piece; a little sing-song voice leading on top of the chords. And at that point it could have been an original, but pretty early on I decided that I was going to lock in on ‘All Blues.’ And we just stretch on it.” Drummer Poudrier, who underscores the proceedings with a briskly interactive touch, unleashes at the end of this scintillating set-closer.

Far from just licks or preconceived scalar playing, Robitaille is living in the moment from bar to bar on Sonic. And his deep-listening colleagues follow suit.

— Bill Milkowski

“Robitaille’s guitar tone articulates a palette of explosive creativity.
– Johnston Sunrise

Space Cycles is a unique and extraordinary jazz album, that ventures beyond
conventional boundaries. – Midwest Review

Quite an impression is made on the listener as these players develop this piece into a breathtaking flight of fancy.– Bill Copeland

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JIM ROBITAILLE in concert THURSDAY, AUGUST 14, 2021, sets 5:30 + 7:15 PM
“Bossas, Ballads, and Blues” New Bedford AHA! Night (AHA is Art-History-Architecture)
A FREE arts & cultural event in Downtown New Bedford, MA

The jazz wall on the side of the Kaller Beef Building houses
Fiber Optics Center and Whaling City Sound, 23 Center Street, New Bedford.

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Jim Robitaille Trio with Dino Govoni live at Gilda’s Stone Rooster

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American jazz guitarist Jim Robitaille, who constantly collaborates with the label Whaling City Sound, and looks like and does not look like himself, if you compare his last year’s album A View From Within (a review of the disc is on the site) and the current Space Cycles. Similar, because his compositional imagination and soft, somehow cozy sound, which the authors of the press release for the new album compare with the tradition of Legato, coming from Jim Hall, Abercrombie and Schofield, have not gone away. And it doesn’t look like it, because Space Cycles is recorded in a completely different format – a classic trio with a guitar and a rhythm band. In fact, A View From Within also featured the same trio, but with a significant addition: then there was a saxophonist next to Robitaille on the stage, and not just anyone, but Dave Liebman himself. The main plot of that album was based on the interaction of guitar and saxophone. In Space Cycles, Jim Robitaille reigns supreme. Of course, it is tightly and qualitatively supported by the rhythm group (both musicians, bass guitarist Bill Miele and drummer Chris Poudrier, I have not heard before) – the king, as you know, makes a retinue, and in this sense, Jim’s partners are quite on the level.

Of the ten songs on the album, Robitaille wrote seven. Of the three covers of the program, I, as a person who grew up on Beatles music, was particularly pleased with the jazz version of the Lennon and McCartney song Here, There, and Everywhere. But even more interesting to listen to their own compositions Robitaille. Jim played the title song Space Cycles very temperamentally and with a good drive, but, as I think, at heart he is still more of a lyricist. Both the starting Natural Selection, and the elegiac When We Passed, and the strict Nocturne – here the beauty of the sound of the Robitaille instrument in the slow pace of music is revealed with special force. Jim in all the pieces, both his own and arranged, stylistically remains within the framework of post-BOP. Hand on heart, the modern mainstream is not always interesting to listen to. Unfortunately, many young musicians, having mastered jazz technique perfectly at Berklee and other modern schools, do not always know what they really want to say with it. Jim Robitaille well-versed in the categories of “what”, “how” and “why”. This is probably why listening to his music is both interesting and enjoyable.

Review by Leonid Auskern

Watch Jim’s new video for “Natural Selection”

Click here to listen to “Natural Selection”

After a brief interlude in a group format, Jim Robitaille is back inside the sparse and generous spaces of his trio. Flanked by Bill Miele on electric bass and Chris Poudrier on drums, Robitaille sounds as if he’s returned home after being away for a while. Originally, the trio evolved out of a jam session series Robitaille ran out of UMass Dartmouth and today it has certainly become a part of his musical DNA.

Like most of his previous trio work, Space Cycles explores the lexicon of post-bop jazz, but also features a variety of roots and branches. The sonic spectrum spans delicate ballads and energetic funk. The recording features seven Robitaille originals along with three covers—the jazz standard “Baubles, Bangles and Beads,” “Never Never Land” (from the 1954 Broadway musical Peter Pan), and the Beatles’ “Here, There and Everywhere.” The canvas is vast and allows for the trio to paint in vibrant colors as it spreads out before them.

From the moody opener, “Natural Selection,” to the closing, epic ensemble jam “Chance Meeting,” the session is dazzling, even sublime. The colors throughout these arrangements pulse and glow, while Robitaille’s guitar tone—born in the legato tradition of names like Hall, Abercrombie and Scofield—articulates a palette of explosive creativity. At his side, Miele and Poudrier support Robitaille’s work with sturdy, confident rhythm and gentle explorations of their own. Miele shines frequently, in spots such as his melodic solos on “All the Things You Are” and “When We Passed.” Poudrier is loose on “Baubles, Bangles and Beads,” and he comes out swinging on “Chance Meeting,” helping the trio to close out the session with freewheeling brio. It is a fitting end to an album that feels like a journey, punctuated by exhilarating straightaways, gorgeous viewpoints, and chilled out rest areas.

Like a flowing, casual conversation among old friends, the comfort level of the musicians here feels brisk, amusing, impressive, and, above all, satisfying to hear. Robitaille is coming into a new level of expression. His musical scope has evolved, as has the tone from his guitar, leaping over traditional jazz into the great and jazzy unknown, a place where Robitaille, with the help of his longtime accompanists, clearly feels wonderfully familiar.

Positive reviews are coming in for “A View From Within,” an album of jazz released in October by The Jim Robitaille Group on the local label Whaling City Sound. A professor at UMass-Dartmouth, Robitaille is a guitarist teamed with three esteemed musicians, foremostly internationally renowned saxophonist Dave Liebman. “These compositions represent my goals of creating a personal style and sound in my playing and writing with my instrument,” Robitaille said. “I want to make a statement with a natural, authentic sound and expression in the music and the playing, and hopefully the emotional elements of the music moves people.” The online publication All About Jazz described the record as “pure magic, fire and finesse with a rare degree of passion. (Robitaille) is an artist deserving greater recognition.”

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A View from Within
Jim Robitaille Group
Whaling City Sound
www.whalingcitysound.com

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Award-winning guitarist Jim Robitaille and Dave Liebman (soprano and tenor saxophones), Tony Marino (double bass), and Alex Ritz (drums) present A View from Within, a vibrant jazz album that captivates the listener with its extraordinary flair. A treasure for connoisseurs of the genre, A View from Within is highly recommended for personal and public library jazz guitar collections, and also makes an excellent gift! The tracks are “A View from Within”, “Slow Tuesday”, “Point of Origin”, “Nightfall”, “Touch and Go”, “Opaque”, “What is this Thing Called Love”, “Spatial”, and “Softly, as in a Morning Sunrise”.

by James Cox of Midwest Book Review