Jibs Brown & The Jambros' - Float This River

Jibs Brown has a voice that can just stop you in your tracks. Actually, even if you're sitting still, that smooth, brassy croon can make you slow your stillness all the more so...

This Thursday, at the Loving Touch in Ferndale, the Ypsi-based blues/rock singer/songwriter celebrates his latest EP, Float This River, with his backing ensemble, The Jambros.

Brown has been performing around the SE Michigan music scene for 10 years. With the Jambros, he can do down-tempo blues ballads, jangly Americana rollickers, and guitar-blazed funk-rock--all threaded together with a strong sensibility for indelible melodies and emotion-packed performance styles.


Brown has a beautiful enough voice that he doesn't have to reinvent the wheel - he can flourish the pure musicality of just a guitar and a piano and his voice, on swooning slow dances like "Your Love's Been Good To Me." Or, he can hit it harder with groove-heavy, jazz-inflected rockers like the title track, "Float This River." The bluesy side shines on "To Toledo," which particularly exmplifies his own, as well as the Jambros' knack for tilling a solid hook and a swaying beat to even the steadiest of tempos. But my favorite, the one where I caught myself taking in a deep sigh as it concluded, was "Blood To Boil...."  More on that one in a second...

For the first several years of his gigging and recording, Brown went mostly solo, with just acoustic guitar, that signature vocal, and maybe a harmonica. He put out a handful of recordings over the years, including this track from 2016...


...but the Jambros add so much warmth and energy to the arrangements. Will Cyprian is on saxophone, Christopher Smith is on keys, RJ Schauer and Pat Shanely are both adding guitars, Jef Reynolds is on bass, and Brandon Husken is on drums. Each of these players has a tasteful way of adding just enough to the mix, with a palpable intuitiveness and insight into giving each song just what it needs. And while "Blood to Boil" was initially my favorite because of the marked poignancy of Brown's vocal performance, it's great to spin it back a couple times and see the delicate and distinctive hues that each instrumentalist adds to the final flourish.

It's soulful, simple, clear and uncluttered composites of folk, Americana, and blues...
http://www.jibsbrown.com/

Click here for info about Thursday's release party at the Loving Touch.