Greg Chako - Paint a Picture, Tell a Story (2022)

Beyond his knack for colorful percussive straight-ahead jazz compositions, bright ensembling with horns, and fluid, emotionally dynamic improvising on the electric guitar, there are many emotional hooks which draw the listener into Greg Chako's personal story. Hindered over the years by carpal tunnel syndrome, the U.S. born expatriate -- who led the house band at the Raffles Hotel in Singapore for six years before settling in Japan -- creates his warm, stirring tone using only his thumb. Slowly emerging from the pain of losing his second wife to breast cancer, he turned out several engaging projects in the mid-2000s with the help of his main trio (drummer Mark DeRose, bassist Christy Smith, and saxman Greg Lyons) and, on this disc, notable guests like Delfeayo Marsalis, Don Byron, Joe Jayaveeran (whose tabla adds an exciting measure of exotica to the mix) and Jayagowtham (look up the "mridangam"!). Despite those Eastern elements, the picture the versatile Chako paints is pretty much in the pocket of thoughtful, expressive, and melodic, that swings hard and percussive and busy in spots ("Cycles," "Murtabop," "What da Funk?") and more subtlety and sweetly in others (the lyrical "Next," "The End of a Love Affair"). It's a story borne of the pains and joys of life and what it takes to get from one emotion to the other, mixed with a transcendent universalism that goes beyond the usual geographic boundaries of jazz.~Paint a Picture, Tell a Story... Review by Jonathan Widran