Fusion in truest sense
Jim Stubblefield’s “Guitarra Exotica” fuses jazz, flamenco, Latin acoustic guitar and percussion at Coffee Gallery Backstage
By Bliss 05/07/2008
Fitting and making peace with labels has been a prevailing theme in guitarist Jim Stubblefield’s career: “New Age.” “Fingerstyle.” “Nuevo flamenco.” “Latin jazz.” “Latin rock.” “Fusion.” “Rumba flamenco.” “Gypsy.” “Ethnic.” Over the past decade, his music has been slapped with one or another of those tags, each of which has described some but not all aspects of his sound.
Stubblefield’s music is an organic melding of the various influences accrued over time by a creatively hungry musician, from jazz trailblazer Al di Meola, metal shredder Yngwie Malmsteen and Mahavishnu Orchestra’s John McLaughlin to acoustic world duo Strunz & Farah, flamenco guitarist Vicente Amigo, fearsome country picker Albert Lee and onetime bandmate/Kuwaiti oud player Waleed Hamad.
The label that’s perhaps most responsible for making it sinfully easy 0to take an artist like Stubblefield for granted is the dreaded “l” word: local. A longtime Arcadia resident before relocating to the Valencia area, he was a semi-regular presence at area coffeehouses and acoustic venues in the late 1990s while promoting his solo instrumental albums “Cities of Gold” and “Rhythm of the Heart.”
Then again, he’s only local for those who live in the greater Pasadena/LA area. And for the past several years, he’s made himself scarce on the local landscape. Much of the time, he’s touring elsewhere with Incendio, the heavily percussive “Latin world guitar fusion” band he co-founded with bassist Liza Carbe and fellow guitarist Jean-Pierre Durand in 1999. As a unit they’ve toured nationally, landed high on Billboard charts with half a dozen albums and garnered radio
airplay nationwide.
Those tours have enabled him to reach audiences less enamored of labels than genuine musical exploration. As Duke Ellington famously put it, “There are two kinds of music: Good music, and the other kind.” At a recent release party for “Guitarra Exotica,” Stubblefield’s first solo CD in several years, a cursory study of listeners — fellow musicians from various backgrounds, esoteric jazz hounds, guitar geeks, well-heeled pop lovers and sophisticated executive types — left no doubt as to which category they assigned his nimbly fingered solos. They were less concerned with whether he fit some preconceived genre definition than with the fluidity of his fretboard articulation and the quality of his melodic ideas.
Backed by a tight combo (violinist Anna Stafford, percussionist Bryan Brock and fretless bassist Ruben Ramos), Stubblefield’s live shows are less thunderous than Incendio’s yet driven by a refined rhythmic pulse that sparks excitement. He ably melds myriad sonic influences, sweet tone and spiraling guitar patterns that reflect his tastes and travels over the past decade — fusion in the truest sense of the term.
Jim Stubblefield & band perform at Coffee Gallery Backstage, 2029 N. Lake Ave., Altadena, at 8 p.m. Friday; $15. Reservations: (626) 398-7917. www.jimstubblefield.com
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