My criteria for a good jazz album is pretty simple, make it sound like a soundtrack to my life... and this album is pretty close.  As I established in my first review for this segment of The Fedora Chronicles: for me, Jazz comes in one of three varieties; "Road Music (perfect for driving,) "Night Club jazz" (up-beat music to entertain and drink to,) and "After Midnight…" the kind of music that’s perfect to listen to when spending quite time with someone special.

"Time To Suttledows" mostly falls into the category of driving music, I can't help but picturing this music being used in an ad for a roadster automobile in the future or for transitional seems for a spy movie in years past. There are some songs that also have a blend of "Night Club Jazz" to it, perhaps ideal for sitting down with drinks after a long day at work. It's one of those albums that you can put in the player and have in the background while entertaining guests or other activities. The album also seems to capture the essence of Summer from years gone by with out that chincy "muzak" quality that other albums are plagued with...

Review of some of the songs on this disk...

• "I'll Always Love You" – If you're going to cover a song that everyone is familiar  with, then do your audience a favor and be sure you do so that puts a new spin on it and makes it uniquely your own. To an extent, that's what Mr. Suttles does with this song. The beginning sounds note for note exactly like the song originally done by Taylor Dayne. But as the song continues, there are unique arrangements and rifts that make the song worth the effort. I also can't say enough about the use of the saxophone on this song, replacing the singers voice. (No jazz album is complete with out sax.)

• From The Other Side Of the Canyon– and original jazz composition with a funk rift but also has a "New Age" element to it. Another great saxophone song which reminds me of my years spent out in the west coast a decade ago. Brings up a lot of memories of the time I spent around Half Moon Bay and the surrounding area.

• Sweet Pleasures – What can only be described affectionate as light and airy.

• Time To Suttledown – The Title track of this album - this song seems to capture and convey the feel and emotion of movement. The best "Driving Song" on the disk.

The best complement you can give to an artist is that the work they've done goes by to fast, which is true of this album. "Time To Suttledown" is just a good album with ten clean sounding songs that simply delivers what I'm looking for when it comes to contemporary and modern Jazz.

The sample disk I received was too short and left me wanting much more then the 4 songs presented here. It's a taste of other things to come from Mr. Sutttles in the pure Jazz arena, and you can listen to 2 minute clips on CDBaby of all the songs on his CD and get a better feel of what this Album has to offer for yourself.

More information on this artist and music can be found on his website.

You can purchase This CD Here.

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Written content copyright Eric "Renderking" Fisk,2006.
Copyright © The Fedora Chronicles.