Travis Colby Band have recently dropped their debut CD, titled Quick Fix. While the CD is not, at 12 tracks, a quickie, it will be a good fix for anybody who enjoys thrilling blues and R&B music played by people with gifted ability.
Colby is the keyboardist from international blues band sensation Roomful Of Blues. For his own trio he sings, plays guitar and keyboards, and he is joined by bass player Jeremy Kindsvatter and drummer Bart Lingley. And some of Colby’s buddies from Roomful put in appearances here. Trumpeter Doug Woolverton, saxophonist Rich Lataille, and guitarist Chris Vachon show up in good form in some of these tracks.
“Look Out” opens the disc with a barrelhouse piano having some rollicking fun with an old time beat from the rhythm section. Chris Vachon darts in with guitar to kick some ass with his six string, and he gives Colby a run for his money. Yet, that piano carries most of the load and Colby must have had a blast playing those racing notes and chords. You will recognize his piano work from his gigs and jams when you saw his hands flying up and down his row of ivory keys.
Colby gets funky on his title track, “Quick Fix.” His swirling organ chords and bracing, quick guitar notes make this an irresistible listen. The rhythm section guys keep this one bopping and danceable. Colby plays a sterling lead guitar line that resonates with the cool funk of the 1960s. Its lean and mean, and he grinds it out like a high pitch cry of an animal in search of something to eat. Colby’s horn section of Woolverton and Lataille are in full bloom, their arrangements by Woolverton. Those horn shots keep this one scorching hot. This will probably be the track Colby sends out to blues radio stations.
“Comin’ Back” begins with some classy, rangy horn work. More importantly, Colby shows he has come into his own as a lead vocalist. He is at his most fulsome at the microphone. His colors and tones are as precise as his notes, contributing to the song’s character with his voice. The rhythm section of organ, bass, and drums is exceptionally tight here and they can make you visualize dancers on stage at a bygone nightclub moving in sophisticated patterns.
Colby’s ode to his beloved friend and fellow musician/composer Jerry Paquette is called “The Reverend.” Colby has an earnest, soulfulness in his vocal as he sings of the straight-talking, two-fisted musical genius from the north country. Colby’s organ is a steady cool of chords while his guitar work blasts off into a spasm of talent, expression, and precision, like how he learned it from ‘the reverend.’ This one rocks blues guitar, blues organ, blue piano, and blues groove with a fierce determination that indicate it must be a joy to see Travis Colby Band tackle this one in their live gigs.
“Baby, Baby, Baby” is a Colby swing blues specialty. Colby sings it with a clipped nasally approach that puts it in the time period that inspired it. Closer in essence to the music he plays in Roomful, this one gets an extra push from a very incisive blues drenched guitar phrase. When you hear Colby nailing down this tortured soul guitar phrase and then belting out the words, you’ll get a strong sense of the possible directions and destiny that lay before this unusually gifted young artist.
Colby gets fanciful in his chirpy organ and guitar work on “Triscuit Jam.” This instrumental finds Colby grinding out his organ notes at creative intervals and at higher pitches than what blues calls for. This is a jubilant celebration of music for music’s sake. He braces it with subtle lead guitar stuff that makes those lines sound brittle and tasty. The rhythm section is adept at keeping a funky pace underneath the melodic sweet joy.
“Wide Open” is Colby at his funkiest. While the rolling beat moves this thang froward with the persistence of a locomotive, the organ boy gets into some jolly organ rolls and the lithe sax melody dances with dart like motion in and out of a funky space just above the bass and drums.
Colby and his boys charge right into “About You,” a funk ticking time bomb of possibilities in their swaggering build up. The twisty second section gives Colby a chance to showcase some stop-start funky guitar phrases before he unleashes something unwieldy with an electrifying life of it’s own. This tune will definitely dominate the dance floors in Colby’s coming gig schedule.
Bringing it down to cruising tempo on “Standin’ By My Window,” Colby gets into a slow dance groove with plenty of organ, horns, and guitar melodies wriggling around. More of a vocal presence here, Colby lets his emotive voice, finally cleansed of all traces of New Hampshire white boy, set the forlorn tone of the number. Another instrumental workout is “Strut,” a composition that allows Colby to build up a mountain of organ notes and to fire off another feisty guitar line. There is something special about the way this one shifts from its melodic phrases and break back to the groove.
“All I Need” has some of the coolest lyrics Colby ever penned. His voice is also freaky-funky in old time monochromatic tone. He makes you feel like you’re playing a vinyl record from a 1960s blues label. This one has the hip groove from the past down pat. The rhythm section guys keep this is in the pocket while Colby hits heavy with icy cold ripples from his organ . Colby makes his guitar scream out in jubilation, expressing his joy that his baby had “All I Need.”
Colby closes out his masterwork with a mellow acoustic guitar driven piece, “What Can I Say.” His voice drips innocence and earnestness as his expanded timbre makes you feel the sad foreshadowing of the song. He tells his beloved that he has to hit the road once again, and he succeeds in a genre that he’s never really delved into before. Other than the percolating organ chords, there is nothing in this piece to remind of Colby’s other work. It’s almost a pop-soul ballad in Motown mode. Yet, Colby pulls it off with his pared down sound leaving his heart right out in the open.
Quick Fix is a big step for Colby. This young musician has been a member of Roomful Of Blues for quite a while now, having written some songs for their albums. This personal CD of Colby originals shows an interesting blueprint for what is destined to be an amazing career for him in the coming years and decades. We knew him when.
www.myspace.com/traviscolbyband
