W.S. Walcott Medicine Show

Muriel Grossman – Devotion  A very late (this disc was only released December 1st) addition to my list, it also is the sole jazz release which made the cut this year, a year in which I spent a good amount of time consuming jazz.  Anyway, from my first listen to Devotion I knew there was something about it which really scratched that itch.  What itch “that” was, I wasn’t 100% sure but I knew right away that I was digging it.  Since I’m pretty sure that no one reading this is going to have a clue as to who Muriel Grossman is, let me just say that Grossman is a Parisian born saxophonist & composer who grew up in Vienna, moved to Spain in the early 2000’s and currently lives on the island of Ibiza.  After having the album on almost around the clock I came to realize that what I was hearing was Muriel’s interpretation of Coltrane through the eyes and ears of Garcia.  As most Deadheads know (or should know) Trane was a huge influence on Jerry’s guitar playing and Devotion feels like Grossman has managed to take the timing and spacing that Garcia learned from Coltrane and transform it into her own space.  To further correlate the Garcia feel to this album, Devotion almost feels like what Legion of Mary would have sounded like if Martín Fierro was front and center rather than Jerry and Merle.