Kinesthetics Reviews

...Most of the music on Kinesthetics is ear candy music. ...This is one man's vision.
3 1/2 Stars. Downbeat . Full Review here

Keyboardist Scott Kinsey spent an active 10 years with California fusion quartet Tribal Tech before the band took a still-ongoing recording hiatus near the turn of the century. With founding guitarist Scott Henderson navigating a bluesy solo career, Kinsey’s solo debut Kinesthetics reunites the four Techsters (if not all at the same time) and proves that this keyboardist is one of the few you can trust with electronic synthesizers.

The opening title track features two generations of Tribal Tech alumni — bandmate/drummer Kirk Covington and original 1984 percussionist Brad Dutz — along with Kinsey’s Weather Report-like vocoder work. The influence of that band’s guru, keyboardist Joe Zawinul, is even more purposeful on the subsequent “This Is That” (Kinsey’s answer to Zawinul’s “This Is This”). Tribal Tech fretless bassist Gary Willis’ updates of Jaco Pastorius further the comparison.

A parade of mostly California-based musicians create further highlights. Saxophonist Steve Tavaglione’s romping “Sometimes I...,” one of the few non-Kinsey compositions, is a harmonic shell game between the synthesizers, saxophone, and Abraham Laboriel Jr.’s bass. Tim Hagans’ trumpet solo drives the funky “The Combat Zone,” Vinnie Colaiuta’s frenetic drumming the more traditional “Quartet,” and bassist Jimmy Earl anchors Kinsey’s electronic trance piece, “Uncle Pat’s Gypsy Van.”

If anything, Kinsey may come across as too reverent of Zawinul over the disc’s first 10 tracks. But as if on cue, guitarists Henderson (on “Shinjuku”) and Michael Landau (“One for Jinshi”) add the one element missing from the sans-guitar Weather Report — and help Kinesthetics create heavy weather arguably more updated than Zawinul’s recent work.

— Bill Meredith, Jazziz

There’s no shortage of muscular playing. Kinsey doesn’t completely subscribe to Zawinul’s “everybody solos and nobody solos” aesthetic, but it does inform much of Kinesthetics. Still, with a broader set of references, Kinesthetics is an album that, with its continuous arc, appealing grooves and occasionally knotty but always appealing melodies, is one of the year’s best fusion efforts.

John Kelman, All About Jazz
The entire review can be read here . All About Jazz

JazzRockWorld

Clearly, the musicians are having fun. Dissecting "Sometimes I..." is pointless because every guy is off in his own world: Kirk Covington keeps time with one foot and rides the cymbals with the other, while Kinsey plays his keyboard solos in one speaker and Abraham Laboriel winds his was through the bass fretboard. You almost don't notice Walt Fowler's trumpet panting as it keeps up with Covington, but you'll be too busy snapping your fingers along to notice.

Kinsey cites Weather Report as a major inspiration, a left-field and rather original selection, but evident in the sort of fusion the band plays (Kinsey has produced tracks for Weather Report co-founder Joe Zawinul, who praised Kinsey's music as tremendous, by the way). It's evident because Kinsey and his band are more interested in improvisation and possibility than in showing off, which defined Weather Report's better work -- though a bass player with pop sensibilities like Jaco Pastorius might have made this release a bit more accessible to the casual fusion listener. So be it.

This loose sense of improv fuels "The Combat Zone," which chugs along for eight minutes but is able to find many variations in the basic structure, though it is overshadowed by the more electronic and smoother "Quartet," Vinnie Colaiuta's drums becoming the lead instrument just as much as the horns and bass. For all the expected keyboard tricks, Kinsey is remarkably subdued, letting his band speak just as loudly as him on the track. You know he's there but you never feel like you should.

"Wishing Tree" is a tenor sax and keyboard duet, with Kinsey setting the mood while Steve Tavaglione plays the horn, and the improvised four-minute tune is both focused and haunting - not the best choice for a Halloween song, mind you, but a nice piece of music. It's a short break from the world-beat inspired fusion found on tracks like "This Is That" and "Big Rock," which sparingly uses African voices that weave between Kinsey's synth textures.

"Uncle Pat's Gypsy Van" is a nifty little work, a sort of disconcerting trip through the uncertain rain that unfortunately fails to yield a satisfying conclusion, while "Under Radar" leans a bit too much toward contemporary jazz and is rendered rather forgettable. The players are at their best when they mess around with time signatures, drum in their own worlds and improvise on the spot, all three of which happen on "Shinjuku," which features a pretty good guitar solo that leads to a kinetic closing jam.

The point of most fusion jazz is to appreciate the mood, not necessarily the solos or hooks. Which is good, because there aren't any hooks on Kinesthetics, and listened to all at once the disc tends to drag a bit. The average songs are sparse, though, and most of this disc is a fusion jazz highlight that will satisfy purists while perhaps converting a few non-jazz listeners over. Far from background music, Scott Kinsey and his first solo outing is something to pay attention to, admire and enjoy. In the running for Top Ten jazz discs of the year.

   REVIEW BY: Benjamin Ray (The Daily Vault)
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: 11/09/2006

During the early 90s and onward, the quartet Tribal Tech helped raise jazz-fusion from the ashes, given the musical climate and burn marks the genre often subjected itself to. Keyboardist Scott Kinsey was a vital member along with guitar god Scott Henderson and other group members lending their wares here. With an all-star cast, Kinsey embarks upon a Weather Report-induced stylization, used as vehicle to strut his multilayered keys and textural soloing endeavors. Topped off with world-beat grooves, darting synth lines and faint vocal treatments, Kinsey steers the flow with a Joe Zawinul-like sound and methodology.

The percussionists enact jungle sounds in alliance with the drummers’ staggered or peppery off-beats. Comprising a few boogaloo shuffles amid saxophonist Steve Tavaglione’s emphatic jazz-drenched choruses, Kinsey’s often exotic synth patterns maintain a sense of wonderment. In essence, he morphs power, solitude and a sequence of terse chord clusters to intimate fluidity in motion atop a buoyant, jazz-fusion/world-music flow of events. On the flip side, many of these pieces seem transient, largely due to melodies or thematic movements that simply don’t stick. Kinsey compensates by allowing the soloists ample breathing room, where mini-motifs generally blossom into sinuous opuses, evidenced on the odd-metered and perky, jazz piece titled “Quartet.” Otherwise, there are some sweetly orchestrated ambient interludes to offset the more penetrating segments, where entertainment and cerebral motivations attain a happy medium.

   Glenn Astarita , JazzReview

Ever since Miles Davis recorded In a Silent Way and Bitches Brew, fusion has been an ugly/beautiful word. The ripples from his splashing continue to lap on distant shores. Multi-keyboardist Scott Kinsey and trumpeter Tim Hagans have both been bop-tized in these waters, as testified to by their recent releases.

Hagans came out of the hardbop muscularity of Freddie Hubbard, but soon established himself as an original composer, particularly on 1993’s No Words, which explored the expanded harmonic vocabulary of neobop. Later, he investigated Davis’ electric period(s) through the employment of echoed and wah-ed trumpet timbres over rock-informed drum ‘n’ bass grooves. Beautiful Lily reunites pianist Marc Copland and drummer Bill Stewart from No Words, along with bassist Drew Gress, for a meditative suite of tone poetry. Punctuated by brief interludes of trumpet-piano dialogues, the stanzas run together of a piece, creating an overarching mood of intelligent introspection. Miles’ presence is palpable: in the jagged yet lyrical chromaticism of Hagans’ lines and in the poignant postmodernism of his tone.

Scott Kinsey joined Scott Henderson and Gary Willis’ Tribal Tech where he’s made key(board) contributions as a soloist, composer, colorist and producer. In 1999 he recorded and toured with Hagans’ Animation-Imagination, a project inspired by electric-era Davis. For Kinesthetics, his major debut as a leader, he rounded up an elite posse of LA-lian pyrotechnicians, notably Henderson (guitar), Willis (bass) and drummer Kirk Kovington (all Tech-ies), multi-reedist and EWI-ist Steve Tavaglione and a host of others, including Hagans. Kinsey is all over the sonic globe on this one, with a varied and idiosyncratic tonal palette that morphs as much as his improvisations. Densely layered, the tracks still come off breezily; the world beats are busy and poly-voiced but still manage to rub up against the groove bone.

New Brew: Beautiful Lily & Kinesthetics
   Tom Greenland , All About Jazz

SCOTT KINSEY/Kinesthetics: Still innovative after 15 years of helming keyboard for Tribal Tech and drawing praise from cats like Joe Zawinul, Kinsey is still riding the cutting edge. Pulling in some tech mates as well as other fusion and progressive mainstays, Kinsey fires up the keys in mighty fine fashion. Feeling friendlier than the usual fusion set, Kinsey adds skewed island elements and other touches that seem familiar but are really off center making a real pleaser for the contemporary jazzbo with tomorrow tastes. A well done, wild ride.

   Midwest Record Recap

    Keys and Chords (Read the Entire Review Here)

This eclectic set of jazz fusion from the keyboard player Scott Kinsey and his extensive list of sidemen conjures the late-1960s, early-'70s era of Miles Davis's extended jazz-rock-funk improvisations as well as elements of Weather Report. The cohesive interplay on cuts like the title track and "Big Rock" makes for a focused, unique-sounding effort that, while influenced by the aforementioned artists, has a distinctive, supple intelligence.
   Muze

Tribal Tech was considerably influenced by Weather Report; especially the fondness for syncopatic elements and the innovating keyboard-playing from Joe Zawinul were clearly heard in the music. TT-keyboard-player Scott Kinsey emphasizes this influence on his solo-debut Kinesthetics, on which he even stays closer to the roots than his former band through the prominent role he gave to saxophonist Steve Tavaglione. Not until the end of this 65 minutes lasting CD the jazz-rock gets its chance expressively in Shinjuku and One For Jinshi, which are being dominated respectively by Scott Henderson and Michael Landau. The full album though is being coloured by Kinsey’s organic keyboard-playing, which never sounds stiff or clinical, but which is constantly affected by a changing of timbres and effects. At this he often handles effectively the Vocoder in the same way Zawinul does. Next to this the tracks often have a catchy, often even world-music-like, percussion-full drive, partly caused by the fact that the composer went into the studio with the basic ideas and after that let the countless musicians portray their own interpretations. These controlled improvisations lead to an album which is mainly jazz-related (it’s true), but the individual class of amongst others bassists Gary Willis and Jimmy Earl and drummers Kirk Covington and Vinnie Colaiuta create a multi-coloured, modern sounding product.
Information: www.scottkinsey.com
Published in iO Pages, nr. 70, December 2006. Website: www.iopages.nl
René Yedema