Gianni Tbay is Turin-based and variously described as troubadour, song-crafter and slide guitar master. The Blues Against Youth is his seventh full-length album.
Given the title, you’d expect something bluesy. It’s there, but there’s a line in the accompanying notes which says, “the blues-matrix is still there but the sound veers towards something groovier and more acid. Other than a few [tracks] performed by himself…the rest of the jam really sounds like a full band”.
With a different emphasis on the strength of the acid, that would be my take on the album. It’s definitely bluesy: ‘Goin’ to California’, including the blues-yodelling, is the Jimmie Rodgers tribute; ‘How Can You Do It’ borrows from John Lee Hooker and the guitar work spits very nicely along the track, as it also does on ‘Learn This Right’; ‘Snake Away’ is a gentler bluesy instrumental.
I’m less sure about being more acid, though ‘Low-Swinging Bad News’ and ‘That Devilish Melody In You’ have a distant flavour of The Doors in places and I’d like to be in a dark post-midnight club listening to these tracks played loud.
The key word, though, is “jam”. The album lists some long-term friends and high-quality session musicians in support, in particular multi-instrumentalist and sound engineer, Gugliemo Nodari. The Blues Against Youth sounds raw, the controls have been set to fuzz – and the result is an energetic, engaging album which touches on those spots where a band clicks together and hits the point where you want to be in post-midnight club listening – because there isn’t anywhere better in the world to hear music at that moment. The album isn’t a jam session, but it sounds like it could be; given the background of the musicians and the calibre of the playing and recording, it’s clearly a deliberate soundscape.
It’s unclear whether the gigs are solo or with a band, but you can see Gianni Tbay in concert from the middle to the end of July, firstly in France and then the UK, including four sets at the Birmingham Jazz and Blues Festival.
Mike Wistow
Artist’s website: https://thebluesagainstyouth.com
Not sure where this comes from but it’s the newest video we can find. ‘Soul Mercenary Blues’ – live:
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