Empathy Moves the Water

Since Jeff Kazor formed the Crooked Jades in San Francisco more than 20 years ago, they have become one of the finest and most progressive string bands on the old-time scene. Their seventh album is a gem, mixing inventive rearrangements of traditional songs with beautifully crafted original compositions, all played on vintage acoustic instruments including dobro, Hawaiian slide, harmonium, fiddle, ukulele, banjo, mandolin, bamboo flute and Vietnamese jaw harp.

The Jades can take an Americana standard such as ‘Wade in the Water’ and make it sound as fresh as an Appalachian morning with their keening harmonies, while Kazor's compositions – such as the title-track – take traditional string-band motifs and reinvent them for our times. There are high and lonesome fiddle tunes (‘Featherbed’), deep and mysterious excursions into the Delta blues (‘Down to the River’), diaphanous pedal steel instrumentals (‘Yellow Mercury 4’), haunting ballads (‘Going Across the Sea’), glorious a capella harmonies (‘Long Time Traveling’) and soulful, droning laments (‘Pretty Little Shoes’). All are delivered with a faultless craft. And do they really mean to sing on the opening track ‘you can Trump down the flowers… they'll rise and bloom again’? Yes, I believe they do.