CD Review: Gadi Caplan-Look Back Step Forward(Released July 30, 2013)Working Brilliantly(Updated August 1)

With a calm expression comes the brilliant guitar work of one Gadi Caplan with his first release this is a man that has a unique gift of musical styles that are rarely comparable to another artist and that is what each artist tries to do have something all their own.

(BIO)

Expanding his musical interests , Gadi Caplan explores rock, jazz, funk and world music in an even deeper way on his second album "Look back step forward" which will be released this summer. An array of different original compositions, from the prog oriented tracks Brother, Frostbite, Monsoon Season, Tesha and Look back step forward, to the funky It's all the same, acoustic ballad Charlotte, Carnatic based composition Indian summer , jazz piece A Latin winter and Caplan's salute to some of his rock heroes on within the clouds. The album features a remarkable cast of musicians that make up two different bands; once more pianist Michael Hurwitz joins Caplan accompanied by bassist Noga Shefi and drummer Moses Eder. Other tracks feature "Opposite Views" drummer Alex Santiago with bassist Maciej Lewandowsky and keyboardist Gonzalo Allendes.

Adding color and texture are violinist Duncan Wickel, oud player Jussi Reijonen, and flutist Tucker Antell. Bringing the funk are saxophonists Lihi Haruvi and Michael summer joined by keyboardist Christian Li, and rocking out is singer Oded Weinstock.

With this array of musicians sharing on this record with Gadi all I can say this is a treat for the ears, this is not progressive rock in the style of Heavy Metal but rather very Jazz inspired music and this is great stuff and his beautiful cover of George Harrison's  "Within The Clouds" here is a performance video(below) of him playing that song.



Gadi Caplan-Within The Clouds Performance Video(click here)







The title song plays so well and the tightness of the musicians is spellbinding and would love to see this music played live one day.

Carlos Santana could almost be an inspiration for this man I am just guessing but there a some similarities to his playing with that of Mr Santana, just have to listen to "Monsoon Season"

I was wrong about Santana instead here in his own words is Gadi Caplan(sent to me via Facebook)



August 1:



I had asked:

For the song "It's all the same" is very jazz inspired what were the inspirations for that song and any others on the album I also saw on your FB page that this album took over two years to make what was the reasoning for that?

I really enjoy the sound of Charlotte it is a beautiful song

also the vocals of Brother sound very similar to that of Joe Jackson



His response:



Hi Anthony, thank you so much for the review and your kind words. Its hard to say where the inspiration for different pieces came from, I listen to lots of different styles of music and elements from what I listen to get into my music (if I'm aware of it or not...). As for "Its all the same", when I came up with the chord progression it reminded me of 70's fusion, such as Herbie Hancock's Headhunters, Brand X and Tony Williams Lifetime. Later I wanted to write some horn parts and I listen to a lot of 70's funk like Tower Of Power, P Funk and Earth Wind And Fire. All of that blended together and now many people tell me it sounds like Zappa... (which is one of my favorite musicians of all time)



The reason for the album taking 2 years was that it was in several different sessions. The first one in spring 2011 featured Alex Santiago, Maciej Lewandowsky and Gonzalo Allendes as rhythm section. We recorded 3 tracks. In the meantime I finished writing the rest of the material and we recorded again in spring 2012 with Moses Eder, Noga Shefi and Michael Hurwitz on rhythm section. We recorded 6 tracks. The last one was Charlotte on a separate session and since then I was overdubbing all the other instruments on the album plus some guitar solos, mixing and mastering. All together about 2 years... I'm very happy you enjoyed it and also the vocals by my good friend Oded Weinstock (I'm not familiar with Joe Jackson...)
All the best,
Gadi

Thank you for reading this 

Sincerely

Anthony Nadeau