Jinx Jones: Fire forever
Californian Jinx Jones's status as fretboard royalty is beyond dispute. Last March, he issued his 7th disc, Under the Neon Moon.
In reviewing it at the time, I wrote: "Bow low when entering the palace chamber. Jinx pulls up a pillowed seat at the same roundtable as Barry Ryan, Chris Spedding, George Benson, and Danny B. Harvey. (From yon wall, gilded portraits of lamented heroes like Joe Pass, Barney Kessel, Matt Murphy, Jimmy Bryant, Danny Cedrone, Charlie Christian, Danny Gatton, and Franny Beecher peer down on proceedings.)"
Globally famed as a breath-stealing picker both encyclopedic and devastating, he's on first-name terms with outer planets of bop nonpareil. Whereas others might have left the Rockabilly / Country trail he's ridden to fame -- to assay styles more sanctified by clef-note gray-beards -- Jinx stayed put and unburdened himself of serrated thunderbolts that parted pomps and frizzed Bettie bangs.
His journey to current renown was paved with experiences that both seasoned and informed him.
Beginning in 1976, he backed legends Solomon Burke and Howard Bomar. He then worked in one of Chuck Berry's regional touring bands. During the mid-1980s, Jinx backed Roy Buchanan in concert.
Subsequent studio session toils led to Jinx playing both guitar and bass on the 1992 En Vogue hit "Free Your Mind."
Over these years, he developed a musical voice inclusive of the finest of Americana past, his own novel articulations lending piquance.
With seeming ease, he divines the blood fraternity of Rockabilly, Western Swing, Blues, Jazz, and Honky Tonk, dazzling with furious note-bursts one moment and in the next, spinning glorious strands of wondrous and untethered imaginings.
Imagine an advanced fretboard textbook on 10. Listeners are surely thunderstruck by Jinx's authoritative command of labyrinthine note aggregates, lightning-fleet navigations, and esoteric chordal modes. One intuits they are in the twang-upholstered, Jazzy Court of a flat-gone monarch, one for whom fair Aoede is a favored midnight-hour ship.
Jinx's Under the Neon Moon holds gripping wonders for both his established audience and untouched ears. Ecstatic notes are bent, jabbed, and fired off at jet velocity. Fierce and wooly barn-dancin' bop drops by the bale, but gentler moments also croon.
"Hittin' the Hard Stuff," "Cadillac Love Machine," and "Million Dollar Fool" point up his flair with spring-heeled rambles and wry (sometimes self-effacing) wit. Instrumental odysseys like "Prelude Noir," "Duane's Train," and "Neon Moonlight" allow Jinx the elbow room to expand at length upon artful musings.
Honky Tonk expressiveness and rumbustious Rockabilly exhortations were colorfully integrated with ebullient bursts of Jazz-inflected phrasings. .
Now, it's not uncommon for artists to cool down once they're a few discs into recording careers. Perhaps they lose something of their initial creative fire.
But not Jinx. Never Jinx. I don't believe he'll ever lose the fire.
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