Review by Dave Sumner, Jazz Recommendations

I really don’t know what to make of my predilection for the music of Noshir Mody.  It’s really not normally my kind of thing.  If we’re looking to categorize it, we’re gonna use a term like contemporary jazz, and we’re gonna qualify that with an additional descriptor of world jazz that sometimes veers close to new age-prog fusion.  This does not describe music I typically like, but I’ll be damned if I don’t keep enjoying his recordings.  The guitarist puts together a tight, unfussy melody, and rolls it out like it had a bank of spotlights covering its movement.  There are times that he hits that odd sweet spot of soothing but lively music that marked the music of latter-day Oregon, when much of the edge has been polished from their sound and became something decent to accompany a peaceful evening hanging around the house as the sun fell over the horizon.  For me personally, Mody is a great reminder that the qualities of music that connect with us are as mysterious and unpredictable as the forces of creativity that give them birth.  I like this new one from Mody. I also still find time to spend with his 2014 release Stories From the Years of Living Passionately.  Music from NYC.