Relaxingly appropriate from apéritif to digestif, Nashville-area genre-fluid jazz combo The Lilliston Effect released a 12-track “rhythm and grooves” instrumental, El Bull, earlier this year, breathing a lo-fi, funky, soulful vibe into a winery ambience. The skilled players express hints of various regional radioland stylings similar to what may be heard on Brazil’s Radio Armazem, the French Radio Krimi or, locally, on Lightning 100 and WMOT Roots Radio playlists.
El Bull stands as a great follow-up to The Lilliston Effect’s 2019 establishing instrumental, The Funky Turducken, and pairs wonderfully with crowds, as evidenced by the group’s residencies at Arrington Vineyards and Van Gogh’s Wine Bar (in East Nashville), as well as at Murfreesboro’s Mayday Brewery.
El Bull is a good morning album, too.
It took a few years to craft a more relaxed, mature approach, but guitarist Jean-Paul Lilliston’s American roots, blues, R&B and soul influences, along with his Detroit upbringing, blend with Music City veterans Ron Gomez on bass, Geno Haffner on keys, Martin Lynds on drums, Dave Harrison on percussion and Don Jacobsen on saxes (for a full in-studio sextet production), not in a bizarre mushroom-y/jam band kind of way, but with a bond arranged by well-aged, disciplined jazz musicians.
The effectiveness of Lilliston’s driving chops, which substitutes for sung vocals on El Bull, makes duet conversations between his playing and that of Jacobsen (“Funky Montgomery,” “Riverwalk”) and/or Haffner (“Juke Joint,” “Memphis (Going to)”) quite arresting. Lilliston’s heavy-hitting chords, rather than linear melody riffs, straddle both melody and a rhythmic foundation, with emphasis on the latter.
El Bull travels through Spanish/Brazilian influence in the namesake “El Bull,” later carrying hints of a Mexi-Cali surf-guitar vehicle in the Amy Winehouse-land somewhere between mambo and bossa nova, fitting for a Tarantino soundtrack (“Spanish Horsefly,” “Tango Suite”).
“Fat Mo,” one of the blues-ier, big-horned, sax-o-ramas, has the potential to go full-on Cher’s “I Walk on Gilded Splinters,” but the (swinging) discipline of our winery ambience jazz group holds “Fat Mo” in sitcom-theme territory, or maybe Kings of Rhythm territory (which absolutely needs to be reconsidered by society).
Ultimately, Lilliston says he is grateful to have found players to try this instrumental idea with him, and venues open to featuring it. And, there’s a holiday single—The Lilliston Effect’s “Blue Christmas”—on Spotify, too!
Find The Lilliston Effect’s El Bull on Spotify, YouTube Music, Amazon, Apple Music, iHeart, Tidal and Reverbnation. Keep your eyes and ears open for more dates at Mayday, Arrington Vineyards and Van Gogh’s Wine Bar.
