Chin Chin - The Flashing, The Fancing (2008)

Chin Chin's self-titled 2008 debut was so auspicious that to try to top it just a year later was definitely a challenge. And so what the Chin Chin trio (Wilder Zoby, Torbitt Schwartz, and Jeremy Wilms) and their Brooklyn friends accomplished on this album was pretty remarkable. You still get all the eclecticism and musical wizardry of the debut, but the subject matter is more mature (albeit jaded); the crooning is a bit more earnest; the grooves, somehow, are even nastier; the melodies are even more wistful; and the solos are jazzier. The composite product is an achievement. You could do the Chicago two-step to the percussion-propelled "Moments" or sit back and marvel at the piano solo that bears a cadence that'll fool you into thinking the late great Kenny Kirkland was resurrected and dropped in on the recording session. Zoby and company float over the melancholy "It's OK," conjuring some of Jay Kay and Jamiroquai's best work, until the pseudo-hook (which is more of a break) pops in and adds an appropriately ornery tone to go with a song about an unsure relationship on the edge of disaster. If the song's chaotic coda is any indication, things don't turn out well. "Go There with You," a highlight on an album full of highlights, is like Chin Chin concentrate, Zoby's old-school R&B falsetto over a swaying groove, intermittently jarred by aggressive horns that end up taking the song hostage for the ride-out. The album spends a tidy 50 minutes letting the gumbo simmer. You get everything from Delfonics-esque crooning ("That's Where I'll Be"), sweat-it-out dance tunes ("Hotter Than Hot," with a trombone solo, no less), smelly funk ("GG and the Boys"), and a two-minute torrid tenor sax solo (on "Kings") that nails the phrasing and lingo of one jazz's most underappreciated but influential legends, Joe Henderson circa Elements. And you won't find any sap here, either. These aren't "love songs," they are "songs about love." Some great music was made in 2009, arguably none better than this album, the second from a group in a creative zone. -- Vincent Thomas