Les Sabler - Tranquility

Guitarist Les Sabler first found his way onto the Smooth Jazz Therapy radar in 2007 with the CD ‘Sweet Drive’.  In fact a song from it, ‘I’m Not The Same’, (with featured vocals from Toni Scruggs and Rahsaan Patterson) made it into my top twenty contemporary jazz tracks for that year.  He last made some waves in 2014 with his tribute to the music of Antonio Carlos Jobim but now, with his feet firmly on smooth jazz ground, Sabler is back with the superb ‘Tranquility’.

 

It is a recording massively influenced by the pandemic of the last twelve months.  Back in February of 2020, after laying down just two tracks at producer Paul Brown’s LA studio, the project had to be put on hold.  When it resumed in July Brown and Sabler were joined by Brown’s go-to bass player Roberto Vally, drummer Gorden Campbell and percussionist Lenny Castro for what has turned out to be a scintillating piece of work.

Take for example the mid tempo ‘Keep Pushin’ that Sabler writes with Lew Laing.  Originally the first single to be released to radio, (from the depths of the May 2020 lockdown) it proves to be a slice of textbook smooth jazz and in similar vein is the album’s other Sabler – Laing collaboration, the wonderfully mellow ‘Where Has She Gone’.

Sabler teams with another Paul Brown stalwart, Jeff Carruthers, for the appropriately titled and easy on the ear ‘Easy Moves’ and it is Brown who features on ‘In The Light’.  When Sabler was envisioning ‘Tranquility’ this was the first song he wrote and it has gone on to enjoy three weeks at number one at WAVE.FM in Sabler’s native Canada.

In terms of personal favorites, the decidedly seductive ‘Crescent City Strut’ is right up there with the best that ‘Tranquility’ has to offer.  Supercharged by a socially distanced horn section of Lee Thornburg and Greg Vail, it is co-written by Sabler and Shane Theriot.  In all this pairing is responsible for five of the ten choice tunes including the extremely easy grooving  ‘City Rhythm’, the similarly disposed ‘Three Dee’ (where Vail on sax again comes up big) and perhaps best of all ‘Esselle’s Dance’.  This is a track that reverberates with the sort of spine tingling melodies that have become Sabler’s calling card.

Sabler’s final collaboration with Theriot delivers the ultra chilled title cut and he keeps it mellow for the final number, a cool reworking of George Benson’s ‘Sunrise’.

‘Tranquility’ is out now and comes highly recommended.