Koch Marshall Trio - Toby Arrives (2018)

The Koch Marshall Trio is a new organ trio featuring experienced guitarist Greg Koch (AKA The Gristleman), his son Dylan on drums and Toby Lee Marshall on Hammond organ. The album is all instrumental, recorded over three sessions in Milwaukee, all the material being written by Greg. The album appears on Players Club, a new imprint from the Mascot group that also produces Provogue, home to Joe Bonamassa and Walter Trout among others.

Greg decided to check out an organ player with whom Dylan was playing and opening track “Toby Arrives” was the first thing the trio played together, a try-out on a call from Greg to play ‘a shuffle in G’, according to the very informative sleeve notes. The bottom end of the music is clearly supported by Toby’s left hand playing so the sound is full and, for the most part, heavy and rocking, as on “Heed The Boogaloo” with lots of insistent playing from Greg who maintains a thick tone that to these ears draws from Roy Buchanan.

“Funk Meat” has some chicken-picking guitar over a funk beat and “Let’s Get Sinister” is more of a shuffle with some Albert Collins flourishes. The extended “Mysterioso” slows the pace a little with touches of Weather Report and Frank Zappa in the tune and lots of Greg’s distinctively ‘slurred’ guitar delivery and a spacey Hammond interlude mid-tune. The band adds some jazzy inflections on the shuffle “Enter The Rats”, a title inspired by Dylan’s girlfriend’s arrival at the studio with two pet rats in a cage! The catchy tune is perhaps the pick of the album for this reviewer. The title “Boogie Yourself Drade” comes from the memory of Greg’s young nephew who could not pronounce his G’s so called his uncle ‘Drade’ and is a classic boogie tune with Dylan excelling behind the kit. Greg uses slide on “Sin Repent Repeat” which, as the title suggests, has a gospel feel though the Allmans reference in the sleeve notes seems rather exaggerated.