Peter Parcek plays the guitar so extraordinarily well that he really owed it to his fans to get himself into the studio to record this document of his talent. The Mathematics Of Love, released on the Vizztone label, features many aspects of Parcek’s fine executions on guitar, and each dollop of talent is in the context of a well-crafted blues song. Produced mostly by Ted Drozdowski, the CD deserves all of the praise it has been racking up.
Parcek recorded most of these ten tracks with the trio format of a bass player and drummer backing him. He does get some help from a harmonica player and also an organ player in exclusive places. Yet, he thrives with just himself fronting a three piece. There are moments here when Parcek’s melodic phrases reach biblical proportion, solos that sound as monumental as Moses parting the Red Sea. “Showbiz Blues” opens with the unmistakable grindy sounds of a Mississippi juke joint blues guitar. Parcek creates a fuzzy groove that allows him to emote vocally over it. The melodic phrases kicks in nice and high, each note becoming sublime poetic moments. Returning to the fuzzy rhythm funks things up a bit as some higher notes sneak back in, are cleverly played, and have true feeling.
Title track “The Mathematics Of Love” comes with gentle acoustic guitar strumming and more of that sublime electric guitar. Parcek’s voice is a plaintive cry for a woman not to leave him out of the equation. The acoustic notes eventually join with the vocal plea when those sweet notes move into a tender emotional place. “Rollin’ With Zah” is a shuffle beat instrumental in which Parcek showcases a brisk pace with tight intervals of notes. “Rollin’ With Zah” has almost a surf rhythm, and Parcek rides around the groove with the confidence of a cowboy. He play so many quick, sharp notes that he makes it sound easy. The phrasing just keeps getting more clever as it moves from one part of the twisty tune to the next.
Parcek puts his heart and soul into Jessie Mae Hemphill’s “Lord Help The Poor And Needy.” The guitarist plays its darkness like a rider who travels through the night and sees a landscape of horrors long before he reaches daylight. That Parcek can find a trail of darkness in what is essentially a prayer shows he has insightful interpretive ability. Parcek also takes his vocal on a dusky journey while keeping his timbre even. His solo on this one combines sustains and quick successions of notes with a tone just this side of the Mississippi.
Parcek covers the Lucinda Williams piece “Get Right With God” by playing the most screeching guitar leads on the CD. The phrases he unleashes jump, race, and dodge the beat, and boy, can he control the whole atmosphere with his tone and feeling. Parcek’s winter tale lament for a lost love “Tears Like Diamonds” lets his gentle voice and mellow guitar lines make you feel the loss. Deep blues is what you have, folks, when you know what the composer was feeling when he wrote it. And as on all of these tracks, Parcek’s melodic phrase moves through and around the groove with surgical precision.
Parcek’s take on Mississippi Fred McDowell’s “Kokomo Me Baby” finds his guitar making a fine, fuzzy rhythm over a shuffling two-step. The guitarist turns up the heat a bit with more edgy, down and dirty use of his deeper, more guttural vocal. It’s also amazing how he presses out a tight melodic phrase around the two-step beat. “New Year’s Eve,” co-written with David Herwaldt, is marked by old time acoustic guitar and harmonica. This song is dye in the wool blues that could’ve been written in the vintage era of the 1930s. Parcek’s electric guitar flourishes are entirely fresh, his own subtle way of making a lot of music with as few notes as possible.
Colorful tones continue right through to the end of this CD. “Busted” by Harlan Howard features more of Parcek’s Delta-drenched electric blues. Yet, here the guitar is ever more pronounced, the lead blaring like a horn eruption in tight places before the song takes a turn toward intensely felt restraint. The song eventually rides out with numerous weird echoes of lead guitar phrases that sound more like Pink Floyd than anything the blues masters ever conjured up. Parcek closes out his tasteful masterpiece with Cousin Joe Pleasant’s “Evolution,” a gem of acoustic blues guitar that greases the wheel of an edgy, swampy stomp.
www.peterparcekband.com
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