Artie Zaitz - The Regulator (2024) [Hi-Res]

A true jazz scene veteran yet still in his twenties, Artie Zaitz is a musician of taste, imagination, and fire with an instinctive ability to combine multiple contrasting elements in a single run. Extended jazz phrases blend seamlessly with blues sensibility and are connected via chromatic ladders and embellished with loungy frills.

Fresh, fun, cool, yet full of grit and infused with trademark humour, in this, his debut album as leader, Zaitz lays down 6 tracks recorded in full analog glory.

The Regulator (named in honour of the nickname bestowed on Zaitz fby Mark Kavuma for his ability to hold down a groove) presents some of the cream of the London jazz scene in an exciting new combination. First call keys man Ross Stanley stretches out his harmonic and stylistic versatility on the Hammond C-3 (Big Bertha), whipping up a musical tornado ably abetted by drummer Steve
Brown who provides the greasy, swinging, yet solid groove that drives the band. Dave Pattman on Conga revels in the space he finds to showcase his Afro-Cuban and Latin American influences adding delectable flavour to the groove.

Opening track ‘Some Extent’ is a blues, written by Zaitz when he was 17. Listen out for the ‘dark’ chord at the end of the form bringing an angular element to the soloing. Dizzy Gillespie’s ‘Con Alma’ is given a delightful Latin-American treatment and ‘A Nod To The Hight Priest’ is the now New York-based Ruben Fox’s homage to Monk in which the counterpoint played on two instruments at
the head, the descending chord movement, and distinctive tri-tone substitutions resolve into Brown’s solo.

The open chord ‘jam’ ‘Boogaloo Ga Goo’ hots up the set and nods to the great Eddie Harris in its composed outro. Blues bends, pentatonic runs, double stops, and rapid repeats reference Grant Green, B.B. King and John Scofield in this playful tune ‘Our Miss Brooks’ tells a good story through its gritty walking blues, relaxed tempo with ‘big-bandy moments’.

‘The Regulator’ was written by Mark Kavuma, virtuoso trumpeter and consummate composer. The piece bears a simple sing-along, major pentatonic riffover a twelve bar form with a particular and absorbing chordal movement.