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Chris Duarte Group
Love Is Greater Than Me
Duarte holds a special spot in the annals of this here rag, since his debut was a feature story in the very first ish eons ago. Since then, he's been through as many bassists, drummers and managers as we've had editors. But we're both still around, still kickin' the shit. Only he kicks it much higher. For those few of you, Duarte is a ferocious blues guitarist who literally strong arms the form to fit his means. With a blistering intensity and an emotionally charged tenacity, Duarte may be as close to heavy metal as he is to Beale Street's gift. Yet, there's still some subtlety and nuance, even with the tubes set at maximum gain. While the speakers nearly crack under pressure from the surging chords of "Free 4 Me," the gutsy stomp of "How Long" is a loose shuffle with some arduous string bending straight from Mike Bloomfield's tenure with The Butterfield Blues Band. In the same vein, his sinewy unplugged work, "Metaphor Acoustic" with its droney Middle Eastern motif, is forever linked to Jimmy Page's middle-eye wanderings on the third Led Zep disc. Just as the Latin jam "Azul Ezell" applies some Carlos Santana-inspired lava licks, and the wah-wah sludge of "Watch Out" is a brain-numbing variation of Jimi Hendrix's "Voodoo Chile (Slight Return)" not to be missed. –virginia reed (Zoe Records/Rounder, One Camp Street, Cambridge, MA 02140)
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