Jake Mason has momentarily stepped out from his work with Cookin' On 3 Burners to produce a new album with his own group, Jake Mason Trio.
The new album entitled 'The Stranger In The Mirror' was released in May and has Jake working again with guitarist James Sherlock and drummer Danny Fischer. It's an album that delves into softer jazz stylings compared to the bombastic funk of his other group.
“I had quite a few songs I'd written that matched more the jazz influence, '60s organ trio sound. So rather than try to jimmy that into Cookin' On 3 Burners I thought I'd just start another project,” Jake says.
For 'The Stranger In The Mirror', Jake wanted to produce a record in the vein of the iconic Prestige and Blue Note jazz labels.
To achieve this, the album was recorded live in the studio using vintage techniques and instruments. “I wanted to make sure we recorded everything at the same time and obviously being a trio there's less people, but also we could really react and interact with each other,” Jake says.
“There's a lot of improvising going on and while there is structure in the songs, there's a lot of improvising and that gives it space to grow. That's why we recorded it live.
“We recorded it with some techniques they would have used in the '60s, so we were wanting to replicate that sound but we didn’t want to make a complete Xerox of a '60s organ record, we wanted to put our own thing on it and we wanted the best of both worlds: that retro flavour of the '60s, but also to have a modern take on it.”
Jake also worked with a number of songwriting collaborators on the album including Eric McCusker (Mondo Rock) who co-wrote the title track. “We've been writing together for ten years and that was a song we wrote together that I thought would work really well in the trio setting. Unfortunately the lyrics didn't make it though,” he laughs.
“I'll record the lyrics version one day soon. It's a bit of a cryptic, James Bond-esque story that goes along with that one so stay tuned and hopefully we'll get that one out and set it free in lyric form.”
In wanting to achieve a sonic quality reminiscent of Prestige and Blue Note, Jake says he is attracted to the warmth and intimacy the labels imbued into their pressings. “It's got a friendliness which is hard to describe, but it's like when you listen to an LP on vinyl and there's an element of home-cooked friendliness,” he says.
“It draws you in and represents the sound really well. Sometimes you can have the most pristine recording, but sometimes it's almost too surgical and it might highlight things that distract from the cool part of it. It's warm and rounded, rather than being surgical and super-precise.”
As for Cookin' On 3 Burners, Jake assures us the group is still in action and looking at another record release later this year. “Cookin' On 3 Burners is still going super-strong; this trio project is not a replacement for it by any means, it's just an extra thing.
"We've actually just finished a Cookin' On 3 Burners record that will come out later in the year.”
