Jorge Arana Trio

Oh fusion jazz, you make me so uneasy. You are so hard to follow. You are progressive and your time signatures are wacky and you remind me of Steve’s Espresso on Baseline and McClintock. You have this way of being totally overwhelming but sounding as if you could still fit in some weird Hollywood movie starring Jessie Eisenberg. Oh gosh, you are so charming and endearing.
The other day I got this fusion jazz tape from this trio called the Jorge Arana Trio. They are from Kansas City, Missouri so I was really interested to listen to this one as I haven’t heard much music out of the area and I was interested. On their tape Mapache the trio explores the world of distorted guitar and staggered drums. Everything is all over the place but contained which I feel is the great thing about this genre of music. It makes it almost impossible to focus on anything else but the music. It’s funny because Mapache seems to create a dialogue between a bunch of different genres, at times it sounds punk and at other times it borders on progressive rock, then it totally throws you off and just sounds like straight forward jazz. It reminds me a lot of this fusion jazz band out of Japan called Casiopea, yes it’s Cassiopeia spelt incorrectly. I can’t really tell you all which track is my favorite because I have just been letting the tape repeat for a while now. It’s solid for what it is and while it’s not usually my thing I can get down on it every once in awhile.
The only real disappointment about this tape is the art. The graphic design is good but the cover photo is of the band in what appears to be a bathroom and they look like Vampire Weekend or something. It’s just not over the top enough like old Jazz portraits, it makes the band look more like some indie pop band and it’s misleading. However, the tape is pro dubbed and sounds really nice, it came shrink-wrapped and all that. Check it out for yourself!
-CFIL - Suave Citation

Jazzy virtuosity in the cassette world isn't something I hear too often, yet with the debut album by the Jorge Arana Trio, that is all I hear. Mapache is a prog/fusion sketch book. None of the compositions stretch out, or go seeking unknown vistas of sound like classic jazz-fusion era recordings by Miles, Herbie Hancock, or Mahavishnu Orchestra did back in the 70s; only two of the twelve compositions break the four minute mark, hardly "exploratory," but what these pieces lack in improv-scale run splendor, they make up for in professional chops. The dissonance of some of the keyboard chords and/or the freak out bursts of electric guitar are the best bits for me. For example, the screeching fuzz and irregular riffage of album closing "Ether" is part On the Corner, part Beefheart. I enjoy the giant sound these three fellas capture from their straight forward trio line-up. There are a lot of good ideas on the debut album from Jorge Arana Trio and I look forward to hearing how they grow past the tentative (though pleasing) first steps. - Cassette Gods

Until fairly recently, Jorge Arana played guitar and hit keys in Pixel Panda; a precocious, musically omnivorous bunch of Kansas City skronk-punkers. Local heroes, hotly-tipped for the best part of a decade, they quietly called it a day in 2011 but wasted little time in moving on. Jorge’s bass-playing brother Luis stepped up a commercial notch via rising alt.rockers Beautiful Bodies, while other former Pandas can be found mingling psychedelia and hip-hop in Spidermums. As for Jorge, he’s pulled in the final Pandas drummer, Josh Enyart, added bass guitarist Jason Nash to make up a brotherhood of “J”s and stepped over into jazz. Someone in the band had to do it. This is Kansas City, after all – they’ve been shipping jazzmen out and up the river for nearly a century.

Punk roots or not, the Jorge Arana Trio’s serious jazz intent stretches beyond leaving behind quirky band names. Not that this apparent sobriety is absolute. Their debut album title, ‘Mapache’, is Spanish for raccoon, suggesting that the Trio see themselves as determined and adaptable omnivores, thriving on trash where necessary, and prepared to spread mischief around the suburbs if they have to. Some of the immigrant-son, take-no-prisoners fierceness of Pixel Panda has made its way into the new band. The glam racket might have disappeared, but not the stop-start emphasis or the punky crunch. Lester Bangs would have been proud of them.


That said, despite the band’s fierce electric energy there’s less outright skronk here than you might have expected. In fact, there’s less than there was in the Pandas. Instead, the Trio lead a lean, strutting pirouette along a jagged line between lean discipline and a scrawl of energised chaos. If there’s any self-indulgence here, it’s the kind you’d find in freerunning; a rebellious athletic liveliness, bodies pitted against the push-back from concrete mass and city obstacles.

There’s also something of the static, wound-up aura of the very early jazz-fusion bands, huddling among the fragments of busted rules as the ’70s arrived. Free like knife-fighters, trying to save their energies and moments for the right move at the right time but seething with excitement over the open field of opportunities. This latter is mainly in terms of musical tension. Skilled as the Trio are, they retain (for the most part) a clipped-back tyro technique closer to bullish avant-rock playing than to the broader subtler dynamic of jazz. However, their taste for driving syncopations and their bodily hunger for explosions of rhythm make it plain where their musical hearts lie now. Occasional bursts of wordless vocalising – combative, gladiatorial, almost like gang chants – break up or complement the instrumentals. Most of their pieces are short, interrupted, to the point – a quick flare of ideas followed by a watchful silence.


The places which the Trio explore are generally shaped by Jorge’s choice of instrument. Working with Jason’s cement-mixer bass churn and Joshua’s vigorous, spattering drumming, he alternates between electric guitar and electric piano (occasionally swapping mid-tune). Those pieces driven by his hardened, stony chimes of electric piano are more staccato, more turreted. On Bitter Era, Jason devises a ferocious distracted wrap of bass around Jorge – in broken unisons, the Trio thrash out a harsh and excited tattoo around the keyboard clunk. In contrast, I’m An Omnivore could almost be lounge jazz, tootling along happily even as all three musicians wrong-foot us. Each follows a slightly different rhythm, de-synchronising with each other and buckling the sidewalk under the strut.


When the compositions are driven by Jorge’s snaggled-up guitar, the trio work in a looser style: more elasticity, more smudging. Ether gradually whittles a brain-damaged marching riff out of Jorge’s demented squiggles. Peanut Butter works around a tight loop-and-discharge impetus, finally tottering into a wounded wind-down, bleeding off its abandoned velocity as if it were dumping fuel. Thieves Among Us sounds like the aftermath of a car chase. Stuttering away, the band could be clambering out of a canyon, away from the burning wreck of a car, to the accompaniment of headache pulses, dissonant auto-spring sounds and abrupt scrabbles as dazed opponents grab at their feet.

Some of the best moments come when Jorge is juggling instruments. Short & Evil, for example, in which he begins by spotting out ringing, sullen shapes on piano while the bass prowls: later, he’ll rub in crashing cascades of guitar like dislocated banjo-frails. Similarly, Baptize Your Dinner (by some distance the softest song on the record) begins as a passing, minimal sketch on piano, a pail of air and autumnal chordings. Purring like a forest, the drums work around this and transform it to a tolling crescendo, as Jorge steps back in with dabbing slides of tongue-like guitar.


Josh Enyart’s contribution to the Trio shouldn’t be undervalued. While his bandmates’ repertoire of rumble, scramble and tone-slur provide plenty of vocabulary, it’s his drums that give the Trio the fullness of its jazz spirit. He paces the brushes around his snare; adds brief powerful steam-hisses of concerted cymbal; hides polyrhythms in air-pockets for when they’ll be needed, and keeps one hand on the clutch for those quick surges of collective intensity. On Death Mask, he even leads the band: while the bass circles in locked math-rock arpeggios, and the guitar wanders off to dab at colouring chords, Josh’s drums talk in an insistent, assertive jazz language, eventually pulling the other instruments along with them.


Echoes of earlier bands flit distractedly through the music. There are hints of Prime Time and Naked City (in the blaring spirit, at least) while on Nightly Stroll, it’s the junior John McLaughlin of ‘Extrapolation’ (thanks to the dense fierceness of Jorge’s splinter-rough guitar chording and the rock-tattoo drumming, while Jason’s bass slithers after the guitar in search of unisons to stamp down on). Confrontation! briefly offers something of the discomfiting volcanic grooves of the electric Miles Davis band, when Chick Corea ring-modulated his Rhodes piano into dissonant smudges. For Snake In The Grass or Catching Bullets With Your Teeth, it’s the Teutonic jazz-rock of Magma as the trio roar out harsh choral parts over the swinging shifts and over the stuck, angry riffs of the instruments.


In the end, though, the Jorge Arana Trio are very much themselves: tightly wound but loose enough to splatter, viewing their hometown’s jazz through punkish eyes and casting a cartoon mottling across it. - Misfit City (UK)

This is William Burroughs' junkie jazz. This is the inside struggle in Monk's brain & the carnage'd catastrophe of Coltrane's Blue Train. This is jazz for artistically enlightened fetishists. The album unfolds fervently like a cinematic score for a snuff film directed by Scorsese. It oozes lugubriously with old doctor's office ashtray grime & modern private eye charm.

It plays out like a night that started with the best intentions & ended in bone-crushing, karmic chaos ...but beautiful chaos...quiet, deranged, pulchritudinous chaos. Someone kept these musicians in a cage and fed them a steady diet of French cinema, Chesterfield cigarettes, Isaac Asimov novels & John Zorn records.
When you say "zig"-they say "zag"
When you say "why?" -they say "why the fuck not?"

The stench of greatness is all over this record like motor oil dripping fortuitously out of an android sex party. Heaving metal swirling & bursting into gear-and-socket explosions of orgasm! This is future & it's past. This is the musical warning of Jazz Aliens who have scheduled a complete annihilation of the Earth and all who inhabit it. Congratulations-you just got the memo. - KillYourTV

What feels like quite awhile ago, I was sent a track by Jorge Arana called "Peanut Butter," and its jazzed-out chaos had me pretty excited. When I finally heard the Jorge Arana Trio's full album, Mapache, I wasn't let down, and I couldn't wait to talk about it with Jorge. Mr. Arana was nice enough to answer some questions, which you can read while listening to the album.

Who from the KC area are you listening to right now?

Ambulants, Fiat, Gemini Revolution, Janet the Planet. They all have albums less than a year old.


What national/non-KC acts are you listening to?

Got the new Zazen Boys album. And the new David Byrne + St Vincent. As for dead folks, I've been listening to some solo Monk and there's a Schostakovich quartets boxset that I always have in the car.


Why is Kansas City a hip-hop town?

Not sure if KC is an anything town... I don't mean that in a bad way. Of course it has a long history of black American music... I'm sure that plays a part of it.


What aspect of Kansas City shapes your music the most?

Maybe the facility to catch a wide range of music, not unlike any of the big musical cities. Whether it's a punk house show, a modern chamber piece at UMKC, a jam at the Jazz District, a metal show in Westport, etc. And having time to do so, since it's fairly cheap living here.


I know KC Psychfest seemed to generate a lot of good feedback. Do you feel like the band identifies more with a psych, experimental, jazz, or metal scene locally?

That's hard to say. Experimental, maybe? I do know the Trio seems to resonate well with other musicians with more adventurous inclinations.


"Adventurous" is a good word, because aside from some more of the mathier metal bands and jazz bands I hear a lot of in your music, some of the tones and structures remind me of the Minibosses [who if anyone doesn't know, are a rock band who cover video game music]. Are there any not-directly-musical or not-conventionally-musical places you pull from when writing or arranging?

Funny you say that. I did grow up in the NES days, so I do know a lot of those old Castlevania and Megaman tunes very well. Some of that's ingrained in my brain, for sure. A bigger influence though is the music from animation. I grew up in Mexico in the early 90s. Back then, they used to broadcast a lot of awesome 80s anime dubbed in Spanish, like Mazinger Z and Queen Millennia. The music from Saint Seiya is still a favorite of mine. I probably have around a dozen different soundtrack disks I've imported or bought at random comic-cons.


Does the size of the KC music scene generate "bands we get along with" associations rather than loose genre associations?

It used to be mainly bands we would get along with, even back in the days of Pixel Panda, but there's been a rising amount of really awesome mainly-instrumental acts recently. All with a very different approach.


This album's really, really good. And tight. Was recording meticulous or was there room for improv? Were there many takes or rewrites during the recording?

Thank you, man. Most songs have very set parts, but certain sections are open for transformation. A few others only have one part set while everything else is different every time.

We recorded it all (except vocals) live in one day. Having always done it at my place, the studio made me a little nervous, which led to somewhat of a rough start. Once we got over that initial hump and fixed a couple technical problems, we got most of it down in one or two takes.


Why do you think there was that nervousness? Extra people, different environment, formality?

Knowing we had to get everything done in one day was the big one. Then, some initial problems with my amp sucked a good chuck of time too, which was worrisome. But once we got into the swing of things it started to go pretty quickly.

Are there any differences in your live arrangements vs. the recording?

Other than the freer parts, we tried to keep it pretty close. Though live, you'll hear a few more wrong notes... played purposely and otherwise. Plus a bit of grooves Jason and Josh like to throw in between songs.

What other bands have you guys played in?

I played in Pixel Panda, and a little project called Cliff of Fame. Josh has been with an assortment of groups... Latin, Maps for Travellers, Pixel Panda, Wad, Savitar. Jason plays in Fat Bobba, Various Blonde, and a new group with me tentatively called "Parents".


What's Parents sounding like so far?

It's sort of a mix of dark surf and noise rock. I'm playing drums; Jason from the Trio's on bass; my brother, Luis, on guitar; and Doby Watson on vocals. I'm looking forward to start playing some shows.

Could you talk a bit about the release of Mapache and the decision to release it on tape?

We're self releasing the album. My friend Andrew Heuback suggested the cassette route. He ran a cassette label called Overland Shark that put out a lot of cool stuff. CDs seem to have kind of a bad stigma at the moment, and you generally have to make about a thousand copies to make get them for a good price. Though with cassettes you can make high quality small runs, package them with a download, sell em for cheap. Made a lot of sense. The natural compression and hiss you get from the tape is quite fun to listen to as well.

Thanks again to Jorge for taking the time, and to the Trio for releasing a killer album. Stream it, buy it, order the tape, buy your friends copies. Honestly, a fantastic album, and I look forward to seeing it on my year end list, and if there's any justice in this world, everyone else's. - KC Music Judged

Mapache, the debut full-length release from the Jorge Arana Trio, is both a throwback and forward-gazing: its simple blue-and-black-washed cover art hearkens to classic Blue Note albums of yore and its narrative thematic structure pays homage to the great concept albums of the past. The trio’s modern influences and distinctive voice carves out new territory of its own.

Leading the expedition are erstwhile members of Kansas City’s beloved experimental rockers Pixel Panda: Jorge Arana (guitar/keys) and Joshua Enyart (drums), joined by Jason Nash (bass).

These three adventurous fellows use their musical wanderlust to carve up twelve short sketches that cover free jazz, fusion, prog-jazz, metal, noise rock, and pretty much anything they deem necessary to move the story forward. Mapache, like its Spanish namesake, is a musical raccoon with its paws all over a number of genres, filching whatever and whenever it pleases.

“Bitter Era” opens the album demonstrating just this, embarking on a jazz odyssey with frenetic rhythms, dissonant plunking on the keys, and a grungy guitar before settling into a staccato groove that turns aggressive in the driving “Snake in the Grass.” A chorus of tribal voices lends a sinister air of foreboding before erupting in a hard rock finale.

Tracks such as “Nightly Stroll,” “Confrontation!”, and the playfully sinister “Short & Evil” make up a trilogy that heightens the sense of high stakes drama. The bulk of the album is packed densely with similar battle-music suites, highlighted by the aptly-titled “Catching Bullets with Your Teeth” and the bendy buzz-saw guitars propelling “Thieves Among Us.”

Early track “I’m an Omnivore” and the penultimate “Baptize Your Dinner” provide nice, contemplative free jazz reprieves from the cacophony. The album finale, “Ether,” returns us to the loose, improvisational spirit of the album’s opener before settling into an ambling, drunken strut, littered with loose keys, scratchy guitar strings and scattershot percussive asides.

There’s a strong sense of storytelling throughout Mapache, an orchestrated chaos. Stanley Kubrick’s Apocalypse Now didn’t improve upon Joseph Campbell’s Heart of Darkness so much as tweak its slow-burn descent into madness with psychedelia, machine gunfire, and stylistic bursts of dramatic flair. Jorge Arana Trio does the same here for the experimental jazz canon.

The clever and calculated Mapache stops just short of an uncontrolled acid jazz freak-out. Instead, it’s an invitation to embark upon a cinematic romp through a treacherous sonic wilderness, just beyond the safety of civilization--one that doesn’t promise to show you the way home. - Deli Magazine

Mapache, the debut full-length release from the Jorge Arana Trio, is both a throwback and forward-gazing: its simple blue-and-black-washed cover art hearkens to classic Blue Note albums of yore and its narrative thematic structure pays homage to the great concept albums of the past. The trio’s modern influences and distinctive voice carves out new territory of its own.

Leading the expedition are erstwhile members of Kansas City’s beloved experimental rockers Pixel Panda: Jorge Arana (guitar/keys) and Joshua Enyart (drums), joined by Jason Nash (bass).

These three adventurous fellows use their musical wanderlust to carve up twelve short sketches that cover free jazz, fusion, prog-jazz, metal, noise rock, and pretty much anything they deem necessary to move the story forward. Mapache, like its Spanish namesake, is a musical raccoon with its paws all over a number of genres, filching whatever and whenever it pleases.

“Bitter Era” opens the album demonstrating just this, embarking on a jazz odyssey with frenetic rhythms, dissonant plunking on the keys, and a grungy guitar before settling into a staccato groove that turns aggressive in the driving “Snake in the Grass.” A chorus of tribal voices lends a sinister air of foreboding before erupting in a hard rock finale.

Tracks such as “Nightly Stroll,” “Confrontation!”, and the playfully sinister “Short & Evil” make up a trilogy that heightens the sense of high stakes drama. The bulk of the album is packed densely with similar battle-music suites, highlighted by the aptly-titled “Catching Bullets with Your Teeth” and the bendy buzz-saw guitars propelling “Thieves Among Us.”

Early track “I’m an Omnivore” and the penultimate “Baptize Your Dinner” provide nice, contemplative free jazz reprieves from the cacophony. The album finale, “Ether,” returns us to the loose, improvisational spirit of the album’s opener before settling into an ambling, drunken strut, littered with loose keys, scratchy guitar strings and scattershot percussive asides.

There’s a strong sense of storytelling throughout Mapache, an orchestrated chaos. Stanley Kubrick’s Apocalypse Now didn’t improve upon Joseph Campbell’s Heart of Darkness so much as tweak its slow-burn descent into madness with psychedelia, machine gunfire, and stylistic bursts of dramatic flair. Jorge Arana Trio does the same here for the experimental jazz canon.

The clever and calculated Mapache stops just short of an uncontrolled acid jazz freak-out. Instead, it’s an invitation to embark upon a cinematic romp through a treacherous sonic wilderness, just beyond the safety of civilization--one that doesn’t promise to show you the way home. - Deli Magazine