Kevin, Kevin and Kevin
Do you know who Kevin Yost is? Heard the name before? Maybe even own some of his music? I do. But that doesn’t mean I know much about him.
Well I do now. I picked this EP off the shelf and wondered what the angle might be on this one. I know I bought it in 2007 when most of my salary went into the vinyl that I played at a handful of places around town. In fact, Mr. Yost entered my collection five times within not much more than a year.
Seems like a lot, right? You kind of get an idea how little that is when you look at his discography. Discogs has him down for almost 230 recordings, and my guess is that the list isn’t complete. Because this dude is reported to have a vault of around 1.500 recordings over at his studio in Waynesboro, Pennsylvania.
Even if that’s not a Prince-like number, one thousand and five hundred tracks in a vault is an almost ludicrous amount. Taking into account that Prince had busloads of people working on his tracks, reportedly toiling in shifts around the clock, this number is even more crazy.
Almost all of Yost’s music came out on a New Jersey based label called i! The connection was made in the most traditional way. Yost sent his stuff to a few independent labels, i! listened and moved first. It didn’t take long and Yost was the face of the label. More than 25 years later, he is still publishing on i!, these days with a constant flow of digital releases.
Until Yost and his buddies came up with this EP, the label focused on various shades of Deep House, and even when elements of Jazz were added to their productions, it was within that genre. “The Jazz Influence” was the first deliberate departure from this tradition. This is way more downtempo, much more relaxed, and – true to its title – serves an even more generous portion of Jazz.
In other words: fine material for my weekend DJing at the bar. The tracks found on this vinyl edition are from a 12 track compilation of the same name. It carries the subtitle “Electronic Jazz compiled by Kevin Yost”. What is labeled a compilation might as well have been called a Kevin Yost showcase: of the eight artists on this CD at least five are Yost aliases.
Not that I would mind, really. What’s more regrettable is that this album never made it to vinyl, except for the three tracks featured here.
Slightly awkward: Kevin Yost’s contribution falls a little short of the other two tracks. It’s a slow and slightly tribal jam called “Long Distance Goodbyes”. While the other tracks are jazzy in the sense that elements of Jazz are assembled to target the lounge, this one uses the relaxed beat as a foundation for jazzy improvisations. The solos do what they should do and they will be fine as a backup for an animated conversation at the bar. No more, no less.
Guy Monk is the only dude that enters the compilation without being accompanied by the main man, and “Livin’ The Truth” is the best track here Fine bass theme, nice piano chords, all accompanied by loungy vibraphone excursions – this may not be the highlight of my bar set, but it sure supports the mood well. Wouldn’t have been opposed to an additional minute of this.
Almost on par with Monk is “Mission At Hand” by Black Fuse which is half Yost and half Horace James, a producer that occasionally jumped to the artist side, always with Kevin Y. What works really well is the more elaborate work on bass, there’s nice work on vibraphone with marimba/xylophone textures, dramatic strings.,There’s a bit of a back alley mood, sounds like it could have been on an early Herbaliser album. Slick.
These three track obviously were released to test the waters for a larger digital series. With a certain amount of success as the first CD was followed up by two more in the following years. For Yost it meant a welcome expansion of musical styles – even if his output probably wouldn’t have been slower without the success of this series.
On a lazy evening at the bar I still pack “The Jazz Influence”. It always does its job. I like that.
Release for review:
V.A. – THE JAZZ INFLUENCE – i! – IR-332
To get the vinyl, check out Discogs: Click
To get the digital version of the compilation: Click