Kensington Blues--Jack Rose--From Rags To Ragas

Kensington Blues is an excellent and always fascinating acoustic folk album by an extremely talented musician by the name of Jack Rose. Unfortunately he passed away at about this time last year at the age of 38 from a heart attack. Very sad that this talented artist died at such a young age. In addition to many solo records, he was also a member of the improvisational group Pelt.

This is an album that I like to listen to when I want to relax and mellow out. It also reminds me of the holiday season. Everything about this album is opaque, the songs are all first takes, with a man and a twelve string guitar. He performs in a variety of styles, from blues, ragtime, raga, bluegrass. The type of music he plays here was extremely popular in the 60's and into the 70's but has been ignored by the general public. That is until performers like Jack Rose, James Blackshaw and Rick Tomlinson (Voice of the Seven Woods) began a mini revival.

I particularly enjoy the eastern excursions here like Cross The North Fork and Calais to Dover. He intersperses these meditative journeys with jaunty folk rags like Rappahanock River Rag (for William Moore) and the John Fahey cover Sunflower River Blues. Cathedral et Chartres is one of my favorites on the album, a densely packed hypnotic wonder. The title song Kensington Blues is another sunny rag with an especially poignant finger picking passage at approximately the center, before returning to the original song structure. Kensington Blues is definitely an album by a virtuoistic talent at the top of his incredibly capable game. On this album Rose, like other great artists before him, goes beyond mere musical competence; the guitar seems to be merely an extension of himself, an expression of his very essence, a quality I find in artists like Sonny Sharrock, or in free jazz saxophonist Albert Ayler.

If you love great acoustic guitar or folk artists like Bert Jansch, John Fahey, or Davy Graham, you will need to give this record a proper hearing. Check out the VHF records website for this and other Jack Rose recordings.