I have never been a fan of improvisational jazz, but I can definitely see the charm in Andy Waddell’s album, Sunset to 7. Every song has its own character, but is somehow tied into all the others through a musical element (or musical elements) that each piece has in common.
Waddell has been making music nearly his entire life—he started playing jazz guitar in middle school and later received a scholarship to study in USC’s world renowned Studio Jazz Guitar department. Sunset to 7, released in June 2013, is Waddell’s first album, recorded after he spent many years working alongside the jazz greats of our time. There are nine songs on the album, with the shortest song just over a minute and the longest being eight minutes and 23 seconds.
His style of music has been called progressive and modern, yet still rooted in the traditional jazz stylings that were common to artists like Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong. There are certain elements of traditional jazz in Sunset to7, yet it fails to reach that level of musicality and rhythm that the greats of jazz did so incredibly—which may not have been Waddell’s goal, but nonetheless, to someone who is as much of a fan as of the big band and swing jazz of the Jazz Age as I am, it can be difficult to not compare Waddell’s music to those timeless classics that make you want to get up and dance.
Despite this, Sunset to 7 was rich with sound and each song told a story. My favorite song was actually the shortest one: “I’ve Got Static In My Head”. The instrumentals were the most structured out of any song on the album, and the overlaid static, with its ‘fuzzy’ sound, truly disorients the listener, making them feel the static in their own heads and forging a deeper connection with the artist.
Overall, the album is well put together and each of the songs flows into the next in a way that is not exactly seamless—but makes a lot of sense.