LOW, SLOW AND CUSTOM BUILT FOR THE L.A. STREETS. NEIL HOUSEGO TALKS WITH SAM GENDEL AND FINDS RESURRECTING OLD JAZZ STANDARDS CAN BE TRANSFORMATIVE, UNIQUE AND INNOVATIVE IN THE RIGHT HANDS.  

With its sweeping, horizontal fins and striking, tapered bodywork, purpose-built for cruising nuclear families around leafy suburbs, the 1958 Chevrolet Impala symbolised atomic age America. Popular enough to become a standard of the time and keep the Jones' curtains twitching, yet like many before, destined to become a footnote of a long-forgotten American Dream. That is until it became the coveted trophy of a street culture who jumped in and bump started it into a new existence, all but erasing the past. Long, lean and low with glittering lines, mirror-like chrome, deep tones and smeared reflections from the heavily saturated finish. This car has been re-invented for West Coast tangerine tinted sunsets, balmy nights under the street lamps, low-end bump and frenetic social gatherings. The craftsmen of the Lowrider scene procure these icons of industrial design and sculpt them into a story of the 'hood, devotion and personal expression. Vibrant and vital.

It's easy to draw parallels between this lively culture and Sam Gendel's new album, Satin Doll. A collection of iconic predominantly late '50s jazz tunes, reimagined, reconstructed and repurposed. In itself, interpretations of jazz standards are nothing new; it's practically a requirement of the genre. However, Gendel knocks off the rust, smooths the corners and diffuses candy-coated colour until each composition glides and moves with a rare, newfound feeling and sentiment. Tuned up and tailor-made for the street, tired jazz cliches all sanded away and patched over. Gendel explains, 'I like lowrider culture, and my friend Mario Ayala is a next-level airbrush artist, who also grew up around it. Customising a car like that is strange and cool, and the music sounds like customised versions of those old tunes'. Ayala's airbrushed imagery of the album cover hardwires into this ethos and signposts the visual world as an integral part of Gendel's approach. 'I don't compartmentalise sound or image, so my musical vocabulary is free to grow from any input. I let my personal taste guide me, and that seems to work out from time to time', he explains.

And, it has worked out on Satin Doll. Well-received and critically praised, the album feeds into Gendel's steady trajectory. With a bulging CV already possessing collaborations with Atticus Ross, Knower, Vampire Weekend, Lonnie Holley and Ry Cooder, you'd be forgiven to think of this as a meteoric rise. However, Gendel views his career progression as a lot more steady. 'I wake up every day and do the same thing, and little by little, it grows. In this manner, I hope to do this for a long, long time. To make a living, the music must come first. I just like making music, and I never stopped. I haven't really thought too deeply about it. There ain't no tricks'. This may be so, but as a testament of his growing impact, Gendel is now signed to world-renowned Nonesuch Records, home of Johnny Greenwood, Robert Plant, David Byrne and Steve Reich amongst many others. 'They called me and asked if I had an idea for an album. It was a nice call to receive'.

Recorded in three intense days, Satin Doll is testament to the creativity and confidence Gendel now has in delivering on his craft and avant-garde sensibilities. 'It was the only way I would be able to get it done, and also, if I can do something quickly and get the result I want, I will. Once I know what I want, and how to get it, I just do'. Gendel customises his sound with shimmering reverb, multi-voiced synth emulation and pitched chorus. His saxophone rendered woozy and syrupy by an evolving, well-stocked pedalboard. 'I do what I think is cool. It's curiosity, which leads to experimentation, which leads to discovery, which leads to fun. This is me playing, like a five-year-old, but with some extra years behind it'. As well as the thirst to trick out his sound, it's refreshing to hear that the intense sessions behind the album sidestepped the all too familiar obsessive perfection of computer editing and heavy post-production. Immediacy was an essential ingredient. Mentally preparing for an extended period and letting go in a creative flurry, takes discipline, but the process also demands reflection. 'I keep my work to myself for a little bit before I show it, and that is the time I spend with it. By the time it is out in the world for others to hear, I am usually a few steps ahead'.  

Staying a few steps ahead, Gendel moved out to LA when he outgrew his mid-Californian roots. 'I am from a small town in central California. Eventually, if you are curious about the world, the small town can no longer keep up with your mind, and LA was close'. However, this was not Charlie Parker Jr's strung out LA, Radio Recorders Studios on Santa Monica Boulevard now long gone. Gendel is a product of a hyper-modern, more precarious and sobering existence, heightened during this COVID crisis. 'I spend time at home, cook something, make a little music, ride my bike, maybe watch a film, sleep some. It's a quiet life', he explains. ' It's nice to be somewhere comfortable with all one's tools and loved ones. That is preferable'. To copy a jazz standard with only minor tweaks almost feels self-indulgent now and Gendel is all too aware of the importance of innovation. In his hands, the articulated bass of Charlie Mingus' 'Goodbye Pork Pie Hat' becomes a blurred wash, shaping the melodic line and all but erasing the swing and dancehall roots of the original. It mutates into something more emotional and perhaps even offers a nostalgic view of the genre's collective memory. 'It's probably a form of therapy, but I don't think about it like that'. The nature of this more isolated approach means that connecting with collaborators through the internet is the norm, fully equipped, always operational. Pre-lockdown, Gendel's work on Lonnie Holley's remarkable 'MITH' album happened this way. 'I have never met Lonnie in person; that experience was a product of the modern age, entirely remote. I recorded at home, alone, and sent my work via the internet'. However unified this sounds on the record, and the current necessity for such approaches, there is still the pull of live performance. The beauty of capturing that fleeting moment in front of a real audience remains. Gendel relishes the return. 'Live music is very important, and it will continue to be. It just is'.

 Immediacy is the beating heart of this music, and Gendel knows it. Whether he's performing for Qobuzz on a Facebook live stream, overdubbing for an acclaimed artist or tweaking his production setup for more radical sound design, this core remains. His energy for improvisation, innovation and re-invention endures, whatever the method or vehicle. And so it is on Satin Doll. Old jazz tunes as the focus for this energy and verve, Gendel's own version of resurrecting that 1958 Impala Lowrider and finding that killer, signature twist. A world of modifications await, but there's no rush. 'Ideas are strange and unique. The rate at-or method by which one arrives at an idea is irrelevant, what matters is if it's a GOOD idea'.

Sam Gendel’s Satin Doll is Out Now