With Sometime Tuesday Morning Boston-based guitarist Johnny A. reinvigorates the "guitar" album. On this flawless debut just out on Steve Vai's Favored Nations label, A. displays a fluidity that recalls Jeff Beck, the jazziest moments of SRV, and the most lyrical and brilliant playing of Roy Buchanan and Danny Gatton. Here, A. and cohorts create a seamless set of soulful, imaginative music that will leave listeners returning time and again. Sometime is a record, in the Leonard Cohen "Famous Blue Raincoat" sense of the word; the band works hard to establish and sustain a mood that captures the late-night ecstasy of long, lazy drives home after work or closing time, the haze and lust of after-bar parties or the afterglow of late-night sex. Like Miles Davis's Kind of Blue, this record is about an exacting approximation; it's sometime, not necessarily late at night or early morning; like the best recording by another Boston band, Morphine, this is music for the lost hours of the night, the hours when we're free of our day selves and other similar trappings. The spirited "In The Wind," which recalls Carlos Santana at his most incendiary, (thanks for that word, Cameron Crowe), or the haunting cover of Jimmy Webb's"Wichita Lineman," are among the best moments on the disc, though there are surely others. Whether the fun, funky "Oh, Yeah," the sawdust-covered floor slow dance of the Beatles tune "Yes It Is," or the all-out, raucous "Tex Critter," A. delivers blow after blow, something to spill ink over for years to come. True to the indefinable quality I spoke of earlier, I can't quite sum up all the magic captured on this twelve-song disc; rather, I suggest that you go out, buy it, and try to find words of your own if you can.
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