Stretch Orchestra (formerly The Tallboys) are a three-piece instrumental band from Guelph and Ottawa. A band like this — deeply rooted in jazz, funk, and improvisation — is hard to review without talking about the individual musicians and their unique styles.
Stretch Orchestra’s melodic contours are filled by cellist Matt Brubeck and multi-instrumentalist Kevin Breit, mostly sticking with guitar, albeit with some deviations to other plucked string instruments. One of the wonders of this band is the way these two interact and fill out each other’s sounds. Brubeck utilizes the full range of the cello, taking on an adapted bass-player role when necessary, but also shouldering the responsibility of lead melody and taking his share of solos. Meanwhile, Breit’s guitar work is intriguingly dynamic – stomping around with aplomb on the heavier songs, but fun and playful during the relaxed numbers. The interaction between these two is the driving force of the band — they’re constantly dancing around each other, switching off lead and rhythm roles while also serving as sharp melodic counterpoints to one another. Most important, the songs always sound full, and in a band without a specified bass player, that’s quite a feat. Of course, it would be remiss of me not to mention the rhythmic prowess of drummer-percussionist Jesse Stewart. Stewart has a relaxed sense of groove and a calm, collected style that brings Billy Martin to mind, but with a somewhat more versatile palette of sounds and textures — more finely tuned towards world rhythm.
These rhythms undoubtedly come in handy because Stretch Orchestra’s songwriting goes all over the place. At first, it seems like the album is poised to move along in the “avant-groove” style popularized by Medeski, Martin, and Wood – funky and improvisatory, with an element of jazz thrown in for good measure. And this works really well for the first few songs, culminating in the nine-minute epic “Hope is a Muscle.” But after this, the album takes a noticeable turn into some really interesting directions, including traditional European folk (“Sally’s at the Window”), Mexican luchadore intro themes (“El Jefe”), adrenaline-pumping Indian drones (“My Friend Harry”), jazzy piano balladry (“I’m Alrighty”) and bluegrass-tinged pep (“Lily”). Admittedly, this drastic change midway through the album is a little bit jarring at first, and it probably would have been a better idea to scatter the funkier songs throughout the album instead of lumping them all together at the beginning. Regardless, all these styles use a similar idiomatic approach that retains the musicians’ personalities even when infusing their styles with various worldly genres, an undoubtedly impressive display of musicianship
Overall, Stretch Orchestra’s debut album is a fresh, diverse, and eclectic collection of heavily improvised instrumental songs. This is the sound of three experienced musicians who have the experimental energy of most musicians half their age, constantly stretching the boundaries of their capabilities to great effect – that explains the name, I suppose.
