A maverick saxophonist and sonic experimentalist, Sam Gendel applies his distinctive approach to contemporary R&B hits on his inventive 2023 covers album, COOKUP. A Los Angeles native, Gendel has explored an increasingly diverse mix of jazz, psychedelia, and avant-garde indie rock since emerging in the 2010s, working both solo and on projects with artists like Atticus Ross, Blake Mills, and Vampire Weekend. While original music is core to his approach, he is just as likely to tackle cover songs and standards, a vibe he ...
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A maverick saxophonist and sonic experimentalist, Sam Gendel applies his distinctive approach to contemporary R&B hits on his inventive 2023 covers album, COOKUP. A Los Angeles native, Gendel has explored an increasingly diverse mix of jazz, psychedelia, and avant-garde indie rock since emerging in the 2010s, working both solo and on projects with artists like Atticus Ross, Blake Mills, and Vampire Weekend. While original music is core to his approach, he is just as likely to tackle cover songs and standards, a vibe he introduced on 2020's Satin Doll, reworking jazz standards with his own fractured, dreamlike postmodernism. Here, Gendel takes a similar approach to 1990s and early-2000s R&B favorites by Ginuwine, Boyz II Men, Aaliyah, and others. Some cuts are more faithfully interpreted than others, like his moody new age rendition of Boyz II Men's "I Swear," where he frames what sounds like a theremin on the melody with David Lynch-ian vibraphone-synth backgrounds and the sound of waves hitting a shoreline. Others are more diffuse, as on his deconstructed rendition of "Crazy in Love," where he essentially boils the Beyoncé anthem down to a repeated acoustic guitar riff and atmospheric percussion. More robust is his woozy electro-jazz take on 112's "Anywhere" featuring Meshell Ndegeocello. Elsewhere, Gendel evinces the dusky romanticism of Soul 4 Real's "Candy Rain" with breathy saxophone keypad "pops," sinks into the Latin slow-jam sensuality of Erykah Badu's "Didn't Cha Know" on his woody vibraphone, and crafts an ambitious SWV medley on his saxophone that sounds delightfully like Grover Washington, Jr. backed by a Casio keyboard. ~ Matt Collar, Rovi
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