The Black Market Trust

MichaelHorowitz

Debut release from Bergara Quartet's Jeff Radaich. Django meets classical, country, rock and more!!

Lango-Django

I'll be buying this CD in the same order with my Oscar Aleman book.. Hurry up, October!

sfishman59

Is there any place we can hear sample tracks/pieces of the album? I'm very interested in seeing what Jeff is doing.

Edit: Found this http://soundcloud.com/blackmarkettrust/good-morning for anyone else who was looking.

And here for album: http://theblackmarkettrust.bandcamp.com/

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adrian

I got the Black Market Trust album 10 days ago and have listened to it almost every day since. Here's my review.

The first thing that any modern-day gypsy-jazz fan will notice about this is: wow, it sounds like the best stuff the Gonzalo Bergara Quartet has done. That's obvious on its face, given that two of the three members of the Black Market Trust are in Gonzalo's band and the album has guest performances from every one of the other GBQ'ers (Rob Hardt on clarinet, Leah Zeger on violin and Gonzalo himself on bandoneon).

But the similarity is more than the sound of the rhythm section (that "modern," crisp la pompe feel). There's also a similarity in types of arrangements, the neo-gypsy-jazz-meets-classical style, the focus on original compositions and the overall *sound* of the band. And these are all good things!

Basically, if you like Gonzalo's last two albums ("Simplicated" and "Walking Home"), you definitely have to give this a listen. This is the album that Amazon.com algorithms should be bundling with "Walking Home": "People who like 'Walking Home' will also like 'Black Market Trust.'"

All three of the guys in the BMT are also in a Beatles cover band, so it's appropriate for me to make a Beatles analogy. Hearing this album is sort of like hearing George Harrison's first solo album ("All Things Must Pass") for the first time. You're like, "wow, I knew George was great in the Beatles, but I didn't realize how *much* he contributed to their sound! This sounds just like his old band, with some interesting, subtle twists."

But getting to the music: like the GBQ, this band really shines when it does its own complicated arrangements. (Every song but one is an original.) Like the GBQ, there's some highly arranged classical-ish tunes, such as "Referential Integrity." Beyond that, though, one thing new here is the mix of gypsy jazz and pop elements, like pop-sounding piano and strings.

The first tune, "Super-Standard," gives you a good taste of what I mean by that. Something as simple as a piano playing octaves and chords lightly in the background adds a new dimension to the sound that's really refreshing. It's got the familiar boom-chick -- yet goes beyond the boom-chick. It's instantly recognizable as gypsy jazz but is unlike anything else I've heard in the gypsy jazz world.

This album has a diversity of styles. There's poppy ballad ("The Descent"), French musette ("The First Waltz"), straight gypsy ("Jason Jason"), honky-tonk/rockabilly [!] ("The J.B. Stomp"), classical/gypsy fusion ("Raise Your Glass"), new-school gypsy-jazz ("Good Morning") and classic medium-tempo swing ("Roll Credits" and "Waiting on Rob").

My favorite track is "Penny," which takes the Black Market Trust's arranging to the extreme. It's a ballad with Selmer-style guitars playing melody over a tear-jerking string arrangement. This needs to be in a movie soundtrack pronto.

Adrian

Bob Holo

I got this album on the first day, and freaked. Even my wife flipped over it and I have all but burned her out on GJ these past years as we both work from home and her office door is a few feet from my shop door, so she hears my shop stereo all day. I'm still not sure why we thought it would be a good idea to build her office on the same side of the house as the shop... oh well... hindsight is 20/20 & all.

Anyway, it is an amazing work. It is an evolution of the style. It is about musicians who have played broadly in the style for long enough to know precisely how it works and who have begun adding to the genre, not in small strokes, but in big chunks and with incredibly interesting new ideas. I also hear some Beatles inspiration. My wife says the songwriting reminds her in places of early XTC - circa English Settlement era. But really, it's their own sound - and it swings and works brilliantly.

jeff562

All the emails we have gotten and posts that that been put up here mean a lot to Chris, Brian and myself so thank you to all of you for the support and encouragement. We hope to have some shows in the near future so we will keep you posted. Until then we will try to keep our Facebook and website updated with any cool news and/or happenings.
Once again, thank you everybody.


Ps Adrian, now it's your turn to get a record out there !


Jeff

Jazzaferri

Where to get it??

seeirwin

You can hear the whole album here: http://theblackmarkettrust.bandcamp.com/

You can also purchase it there or from Michael.

Thanks for your interest!

Archtop Eddy

Great job fellas. I downloaded the CD about a week ago and have been really digging it. Bob, Adrian, and Kale have done a great job reviewing it and highlighting the CD's features and special character and charm. I couldn't agree with them more!

Some CDs (even good ones), you listen to once; others a couple of times. And then there are those you listen to repeatedly and look forward to each repeated play. The songs become like old friends. This is how BMT sounds to me. I hope to catch you fellas with this act someday! AE

Bones

Dang Chris, that is great!

Are you guys playing out? Didn't see a schedule on the web page.

Thanks!