May 04, 2022

Adam Schultz - Soulful Distancing (2021)

► The album

Cool funky first shot

Is it young Schultz first album or is it Spady's new one ? Should it have been titled as "from Clarence Spady and/with Adam Schultz" or the opposite ? These questions are not simple rhetoric : Spady has been Schultz's mentor for several years, taking him on tour with him, leaving the guitar to him on three tracks of his own last album "Surrender" (2021) while working at the same period on Schultz' debut one. He is more than a simple guest on his protege's first opus : though he didn't write a single track, he co-produced it with Doug Schultz, Adam's father, plays second guitar all along and sings on six tracks, while Schultz doesn't sing one single word, concentrating on his guitar work.

We have presented Clarence Spady previously (1), so let's talk a bit about Schultz. On his official Web site, he is presented as "a jazz and blues guitarist and composer". He could and should have added "funk". Born in 2002, he studied for six years in a New York high school that was offering an outstanding music studies program. At 14 he was remarked by Spady who took him under his wing. Spady recalls : “The kid could really play and had the whole package. I felt like I was listening to myself when I was 15. One night at a gig, Douglas Schultz approached me and asked if I would give his 14 year old a lesson. I ended up giving Adam a lesson and was so impressed I invited him to sit in with me that night at Terra Blues in New York City.”

The funky-jazzy soul sound of the album is totally in Spady's style, and Schultz guitar playing fits perfectly in. And as a song composer, he certainly has a gift too as proved by his original compositions, most of them funky soul numbers with cool laid back guitar : the mellow "Good Conversation", the swinging funky R'n'B "Harlem Tonight" and "Have Some Faith" (co signed by Aviva Verbitsky), the excellent "Cure For The Blues", and "Toxic Medicine", the least convincing one to my taste.

Spady (left) & Schultz (masked)
The remaining tracks are six revisits of songs popularized by such renowned artists as Johnny "Guitar" Watson (the pounding "A Real Mother For Ya"), Louis Jordan ("Early in The Mornin'", a swinging blues with sax and choir), Little Walter ("Who (Who Told You)", enlightened by Scott Brown piano and Schultz solo), Tyrone Davis (the excellent melancholy soul ballad "Can I Change My Mind"), Otis Rush ("Cut You Loose", a song written by Mel London, totally transformed into an organ driven piece of funk, featuring a great but short guitar solo from Schultz), and Howlin’ Wolf (".44 Blues", a Roosevelt Sykes piece, transformed by Schultz guitar hypnotic riff).

These tracks have all been revisited in a contemporary mix of cool bluesy, funky and jazzy swinging style, with the help of long experienced singers (let's salute Michael Angelo's vocals) and musicians from different soul, blues and jazz horizons (like the excellent Robert O'Connell on B3 organ). Including Spady on guitar, they build solid foundations on which Schultz can express himself on guitar. Fortunately the young guitarist (he was 17 or just 18 at the time of the first recording sessions) didn't fall in the guitar-slinger trap of over-technical demonstration and keeps it in total cool control. Smartly, he stays humbly at the service of the songs, sometimes amazingly discreet and even shy, an instrumentist conscious of his skills who already has not much to prove. ■

(1) About Clarence Spady's 2008 album "Just Between Us" :
 → https://jellyrollbaker.blogspot.com/2019/03/clarence-spady-just-between-us.html
→ https://onurblues.blogspot.com/search/label/Clarence%20Spady

Interview

Videos
Spady & Schultz
● Most of the videos of Adam Schultz, alone or with Spady, are available either on his Web site and YT channel, or on his father Douglas Schultz YT channel :


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