Robert Walter - There Goes the Neighborhood

Robert Walker's album was released last October, and it's getting reviewed now because 1) it's fucking awesome 2) it took awhile to for Simple to pass it to me and 3) it's fucking throw your hands up and love someone awesome. For those of you not in the know, Robert Walker is a masterful jazzy guitar guru. He's like Gershwin with Curtis Mayfield on his shoulder, whispering cool asphalt jungle vibes in his well-tuned ear. There Goes the Neighborhood is truly unique, truly exciting, and truly breathtaking. Walker has no vocals on this CD with the exception of Red Holloway's sparse voice crooning on "Bakery Blues", but it's not a drawback to the album if you can't sing along. Hell, make up your own words: It's something you could put in any day and feel instantly better, it's something that makes you feel alive and happy- Kinda like Sesame Street. In terms of Big Bird and Ernie, you know how Sesame St. was a street? A real street with stoops and trashcans and all sorts of ethnic people walking around trying to get you to learn something? Well, that's what this album is like, only it's not full of muppets or brought to you by the letters "C" and "K" and by the number "7"... It's urban and jazzy and smooth. The first track, "2% Body Fat" is groovy wah pedal and strum action garnished with keyboards: You're having ice cream with Samuel L. Jackson and laughing. "Bread and Water" could be a Beastie Boys sample or the Babylon sisters just chillin', and Phil Upchurch's saxaphone solo just makes you feel good. The title track captures more street sounds and is very laid back like a Sunday afternoon with Bill Cosby. "Wade in the Water" is the pavement cooling down, and "The Tease" is the funky rebels and their swizzle sticks on clavichord delay: It's sweet lemonade. "4:00 Wash Up" has a great Who-like intro, and sticks to a dirtier blade with it's edgier frays and is more a smoke-filled poker night. "Corner Store" is all about Sesame St., as it's likeable and very universal. "Swap Meet" features rainbow flat-bed trucks and barefoot kids chasing after the Good Humor man, while "My Babe" and "Luck" punctuate the end of a good movie, very bittersweet. So now that I've told you how to get to Robert Walter's street, you just have to go. It's an album that you might not think you'll enjoy until you just let yourself get immersed in it. It's very wonderful and fullfilling and unexpected and melodic and... I simply cannot say enough good things about this album, as it is one of the first truly wonderful albums I've heard in a long time. [www.20thcongress.com]