Since vocalist and guitarist Jose Gobbo moved from his native Brazil to the Midwest to pursue his Master’s in Jazz Performance in 2011, he has released five albums under his full name Jose Emilio Gobbo and recorded and/or performed with the Chip Stephens Organ Trio, Brad Wheeler Quartet, the House Trio, Chip McNeill, Larry Gray, Jim Pugh and others.
Two years after forming the Jose Gobbo Trio with bassist Max Beckman and drummer Jay Ferguson, the group makes its recording debut with Current, a project whose intimately arranged and intricately and soulfully played pieces are as impressionistic as the green, blue and yellow hued album art.
From the colorful, hypnotic opening number “Mais Feliz” through the moody and lyrical closer “Hope,” the trio’s dynamic presentation finds Gobbo singing along with his muted electric guitar line as Beckman and Ferguson create emphatic percussive hustle and bustle behind him.
While much of the emotional focus is on Gobbo’s beautiful supple and charming Portuguese vocals and the many solos populating the set, the trio mostly excels at creating a wide variety of moods via Gobbo’s fluid lines and his intuitive rapport with his alternately powerful and subtly sensual rhythm section.