Gary Tu : Look East

Originally from Taipei, Taiwan and now living in Chicago, Gary Tu has established himself as a young up and coming Jazz Guitarist who has the skills and determination to continue on this path for many years to come. His first release, Look East, is a prominent debut of nine tunes featuring five well-crafted original compositions and four time-honored classics from highly recognized artists: Steve Swallow, Miles Davis, Sonny Rollins and Frank Foster.

In fact I was quite delighted to hear Steve Swallow’s “Falling Grace” which has been a favorite of mine since I first heard Pat Metheny do a version of it sometime ago. And while we are on the subject of Metheny, let me get this out of the way...yes, there are some stylistic and sonic similarities in Gary’s playing that may remind you of Metheny. However, this is definitely not a negative and actually should be put in the plus column since Metheny is one hell of a musician. If that’s the only “bad press” you get as a player then more power to ya! Now onto Gary Tu.

I’ve enjoyed listening to Look East for a while now and I like Gary’s playing and writing a lot. His approach is spacious and bop-ish with fluid lines played with ease and confidence. He sounds very comfortable on guitar and his emerging harmonic sense is less rigid than a lot of players his age. While he has obviously checked out the vernacular of Jazz, he doesn’t stick with the staid patterns that sometimes get regurgitated for whatever reason.

His take on Rollins’ “Airegin” and Swallow’s “Falling Grace” for example, demonstrates his technical ability at playing some quick lines through the changes without sounding stale. Gary’s original composition “The Cube” also shares this same facility and probably gets a lot of people whooping and hollering when he performs this tune live. Drummer Andre Beasley also gets to shine on most of these tunes as well, stepping out of the role as accompanist and into the role of soloist. Bassist Kurt Schweitz also delivers the goods throughout the album and improvises quite nicely as is apparent on the tunes “Look East”, “Sun Rise”, “Falling Grace”, “Simone”, “Milestones” and the delightful ballad “Passing Solitude”. In addition, “Passing Solitude” features a soulful solo by Gary, showing how melodic a player he can be. And don’t forget to check out Frank Foster’s lovely tune “Simone” as Gary gives it a sensitive reading both during the melody and the solo section as Beasley digs into the tune with some nice dynamic snare work. Great stuff!

While I like all the tunes on this CD there is one that I listen to over and over again: “The Road To The Sky”. This is a bright and upbeat tune with an electric solid-body sound that somewhat reminds me of Motown for some reason. The tune is way catchy with a strong melody that hits all the right buttons for me. He also introduces the use of a guitar synth, providing a worthy of note similarity to “you know who” which works given the context of the tune. This is definitely a radio friendly vehicle and a tune I would love to see live.

I would definitely recommend this CD to anyone who enjoys well written tunes and quality playing and I look forward to hearing more from Gary Tu.

Go to cdbaby.com/cd/garytu to purchase Look East and check out Gary Tu's website at www.garytu.com to see what else he has to offer.

Lyle Robinson