Fragments – Tobin Mueller (reviewed by Dave Franklin)

Inspiration comes from anywhere and everywhere, and the trigger for it is as personal and individual as the difference between one musical mindset and the next. But perhaps one thing common to all music makers, no matter what sound or style they call home, is the pieces of music that seem to remain an eclectic soundtrack that runs around in their head, snippets of songs, the hook of a well-known piece, the hard to place riff of something you heard a long time ago, a new hit, an old favorite.

Such Fragments often drive musicians to build new songs loosely based on those sounds. Generally speaking, it is not through reworking the songs per se, but usually through extensions or musical tangents of the original, as a way of trying to recapture the same feeling they had when they first heard it, or a desire to find the logical extension of the song. Such an idea prompted Tobin Mueller‘s latest album, Fragments, a collection of songs inspired by just a recollection of such sonic fragments.

So, throughout this long-player, we are treated to variations on the theme, as Sergei Rachmaninoff might have called them, had he access to the music of the rock and roll age, classic songs by some of the biggest artists of the modern era seen through a new musical filter.

Things kick off in fine style with “Tobacco Road,” closer to a cover than a reimagining, but doing what all good jazz and blues bands do so brilliantly, here taking the song to greater sonic heights when compared to the sparseness and space found in the Loudermilk original.

“Dreamer” reworks the feeling of John Lennon‘s “Imagine” into a Latin groover, moving it from its introspective and philosophical musing on a better world into the homecoming party soundtrack to be played if we ever see such a time come to fruition. It’s a majestic and celebratory weave of breezy brass and contagious congas, throbbing basslines, and adventurous guitars, and, of course, at the heart of it, Mueller’s delicious piano. Proof, as are all the songs found here, that the story of a song never ends as long as people keep writing new interpretations and new sonic chapters for it to live again.

Just to balance things out, Paul McCartney also features; “Winding Road,” embracing Brazilian rhythms and interesting time signature deviations to again lift a deep and plaintive song (“The Long and Winding Road”) into a shuffling dance-infused number.

James Taylor‘s “Fire and Rain” becomes a cello and piano duet, blending the neo-classical with the jazzy; Simon & Garfunkel*’s “America” is woven around their “Cecilia” into a 60’s psychedelic-pop piece called “All Come to Look for America” and “Seasons Will Pass You By” takes its inspiration for the Yes classic, “Close to the Edge” a band whose already complex arrangements and ever-changing musical meter is a world that most would fear to tread – not Tobin Mueller, he clearly loves a challenge, and a chance to juggle time signatures and embrace the ornateness ’till his heart’s content.

Like all of Tobin’s albums, you get a lot of mileage out of these songs. First, consider the original themes, then their new arrangement, and how the songs take on new life when put to new rhythms, meters, and instrumentation. Then, you are even asked to consider the nature of a song, not only the musical choices and the extraordinary talent of the players and arrangements found here but that any recording of your favorite tune is just one version of what happened in one take, on one day with one particular set of musicians. Fragments tell us that a song never ends, that even the best songs are ephemeral sounds that ebb and flow through our lives, changing form and living anew.

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