Where technology meets art

Greg Ward Organ Quartet, September 2019 – Chicago

The down-home, funky, jazz organ recordings of the 50’s and 60’s have always been a popular segment of the jazz repertoire. But being blues based, they could sometimes stray into repeatedly familiar territory and even descend into harmonically meaningless clichés. Not here. Greg Ward and his group (Ward on alto sax, Matt Gold on guitar, Don Chase on organ and Greg Artry on drums) lend a modern and original slant to the library of organ/guitar based jazz performances. Ward is at the forefront of Chicago avant jazz, yet here he plays the music right down the middle as do his colleagues – but not so commonly as to be boring. Just listen to the wonderful, modern, drumming of Greg Artry who propels the session forward, while lending modern punctuated accents and drum shots to the proceedings. Greg’s alto work is captured on a tube, Neumann U-67 while the guitar was mic’d with the legendary Telefunken 251e. Two Neumann, tube, KM 254s were used on the organ while the drums were covered with a stereo pair of AKG 414EBs. The result is an infectious session with as natural a sound as you’ll hear.