SERIOUSLY DEEP

New York City based multi-instrumentalist BELEDO has published a new album in 2021 that has plenty to offer. Of course, above all, he's a prolific jazz fusion guitarist. Though the acoustic piano contributions are from the finest stage too. And then actually there's nothing to say about the involved Tony Levin furthermore. He's one of the busiest musicans all around the progressive rock realm, I'm aware of. Finally drummer Kenny Grohowski completes the core trio, bestknown from collaborations with Brand X, John Zorn, John Medeski. Over the course of more than 60 minutes playing time there is a really prolific entity underway here, by all means. And this also includes the songwriting as such. Deliberated or not, some references to other musicians are present too.

Hence now the obvious, the title track Seriously Deep turns out to be a re-arrangement of a composition that originally was released in 1977 by Eberhard Weber. Who is a bassist of course. And so it's not really surprising that this evolves into a new Tony Levin masterpiece in the consequence. Kicking off with a space/ambient intro my album favourite would be the touching Knocking Waves though. Simply wonderful, and totally improvised I assume. In between BELEDO presents diverse fusionesque guitar styles, sometimes it's really 'holdsworthy'. Vocals are playing a minor role on this album, concerning two songs this sees either a male (Boris Savoldelli) and a female singer (Kearoma Rantao) guesting. Plus some vibraphone contributions which are enriching the whole thing. A superb album! That means 4.5 stars on the stairway to heaven.