Guitarist Dimi DiSanti could play with anyone anywhere, and he has, working with Bernard Purdie, James Newton, the Temptations, the Drifters, the Coasters, Sparx, and Lorenzo Antonio, among others. Lucky for us in New Mexico, he chooses to live and play here, and he will celebrate the release of his excellent new album, Our Big Backyard, at the Outpost on August 15, fronting a band that comprises a who’s who of New Mexican musicians.
The pandemic provided unlooked-for free time for many musicians, and DiSanti took advantage of his roomy new schedule to write several new compositions. The timing was about right. “My joke is that I release something every 20 years whether I need to or not,” he says. It’s actually been 24 years, but the new one is worth the wait.
Our Big Backyard offers abundant evidence of DiSanti’s virtuosity and versatility. His characteristically clean, crisply expressive lines grace every one of the album’s nine original compositions, and the range of styles—funk, jazz (swing and fusion), hard rock, Latin, blues—eloquently demonstrate his deep familiarity with multiple genres and the influence of disparate musicians, from Metheny to Santana to Robben Ford. That range of material wasn’t so much planned as it was a natural outgrowth of DiSanti’s career. “Part of it is just being a freelance musician for so long and playing all these different styles, and loving a lot of different styles,” DiSanti says.
It was his older brother’s Rolling Stones and Santana records and whatever radio he could pick up from Albuquerque—he grew up in the village of San Cristobal in northern New Mexico—that originally caught hold of DiSanti’s ears and wouldn’t let go. (“I love the groove,” he told me in an interview a few years ago, and many of the album’s tunes are definitely dance-worthy.) DiSanti cut his teeth in a series of bands in the lively Albuquerque club scene in the ’70s before attending Los Angeles Grove School of Music, where he got a solid academic grounding in his chosen profession.
That grounding got him work as music director for Sparx and Antonio Lorenzo for years, and it came in handy in the two recording sessions for the new album, for which the band had only a single rehearsal. But DiSanti’s musical direction and the fact that his bandmates—Alex Murzyn (sax), Jim Ahrend and Robert Muller (keyboards), Robert “Milo” Jaramillo (bass), and John Bartlit (drums)—“can read their asses off,” as DiSanti says, allowed them to get the tracks down perfectly. The superb recording, done at Third Eye Studios (with thanks to Dave McRae) and Mountain Road Studios, is the work of studio engineer Sid Fendley, who also made contributions on keyboards.
It’s hard to pick a favorite on the album. There’s “Pocket Change,” which would feel right at home on a Steely Dan album (bend those strings, Dimi!). The mellow “Sunrise Serenade.” The blistering “Time to Burn.” The funky “Señor Smoothie (nice solo, Alex; great work, Milo and John). The kinetic tenderness of the Latinesque and densely chorded “Flora del Valle,” DiSanti’s tribute to his wife, Flora Lucero, with a nice piano solo from Robert. “Westside Shuffle,” made for Saturday night, balanced by “Church Rock,” a Sunday song of praise and gratitude with a Santana influence. The swinging title track, which, says DiSanti, reflects not only the wilderness behind San Cristobal, but also the artist’s creative space, and features Jim’s fine piano work. The reflective closer “Azul.”
At the Outpost, DiSanti will be joined by Murzyn, Jaramillo, and Bartlit, with Steve Figueroa ably taking over the keyboards.
Dimi DiSanti CD Release Party
Thursday, August 15, 7:30 p.m.
Weil Hall at the Outpost Performance Space
210 Yale SE, Albuquerque
Tickets: $15–$30
For tickets or more information, go here.
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© 2024 Mel Minter