Guitarist Tones Down Strings, Plays Up Vocals

Guitarist Frank Gambale was weaned on Hendrix and Clapton and today cuts a blazing path in Chick Corea’s Elektric Band. But at the ripe old age of 33, Gambale is taking his own projects in a mellower direction that parallel George Benson’s. Benson made the move from guitar hero to singer more than 10 years ago.

Gambale--on his fifth and newest solo release, last year’s “Note Worker”--sings four songs, while his slinking, sliding guitar plays a less obvious role than usual.

Although Gambale, who plays the Belly Up Tavern in Solana Beach this Wednesday, acknowledges a desire for larger audiences, he says that’s not the motive behind his redirection.

“I seem to be getting older,” said the Australian-born guitarist, who now lives in Northridge, Calif. “My tastes are changing. I just don’t have so much of the desire to do pyrotechnics. Now, it’s music and melody that’s important. When I write music for a record now, I’m more concerned with the overall song than the individual parts.”

Gambale’s current sound bears some resemblance to one of his early influences: Steely Dan. Gambale’s vocals sound a lot like Steely Dan’s Donald Fagen, and some of the songs on “Noteworker” have the laid-back, deceptively simple sound of vintage Steely Dan. Besides guitar, guitar synthesizer and vocals, Gambale contributes keyboards, a talent that dates from his teen years in Canberra.

“I was influenced by Chick Corea very heavily,” Gambale said. “I had all his records. I was an avid fan. I gave guitar up for two years to play keyboards, and I still play a lot of keyboards on my records. That’s why the music is sounding different. I’m writing on keyboards, and my facility on keyboards is not the same as on guitar, so the music is more accessible. It’s complex harmonically, but it’s not physically difficult to play.”

Easy for Gambale to say, but he still acquits himself heroically on guitar. Gambale is a brainy guitarist, fond of cerebral inventions along the lines of Allan Holdsworth or Al DiMeola.

Though Gambale has idolized Corea for years, he has only recently begun to acquaint himself with the work of earlier jazz greats.

“I’ve been listening to a bunch from Impulse, early Coltrane, stuff like that,” he said. “Some if it’s a bit out for me, it’s not my cup of tea, really. I’ve always come less from jazz and more from a commercial background. I really don’t think I was influenced by jazz as much as pop--Crosby Stills & Nash, Steely Dan, Earth Wind & Fire. I was never into Miles or Coltrane or those guys at all.”

With his emerging guitar-and-vocals approach on both “Note Worker” and its predecessor, “Thunder From Down Under,” Gambale is gaining a wider audience. “Thunder From Down Under” was his best seller yet, especially in Japan, where it hit No. 1 on contemporary jazz charts. Gambale realizes he may be losing some of his hard-core guitar fans, but doesn’t seem to mind.

“I’m sure they go, ‘I wish he’d play guitar more,’ but I’m just trying to make music I like and hope people like it, too.”

Gambale and his road band, which includes several players from the new release, will take the Belly Up stage around 9:30 or 10, following an 8:30 set by Minimum 3, an Orange County fusion band.

San Diego saxman Ray Rideout will be accompanied by a Memorex band this Wednesday night and again Jan. 30 at Jazz by the Way in Rancho Bernardo.

The tape backup comes for economic reasons, but also because Rideout hasn’t had time to rehearse a band with the challenging material he prefers. On classic jazz tunes, he uses those recorded rhythm section tapes available through music magazine. On his own material, he is backed by his own recordings of synthesized sounds he makes in his home studio.

“Some people probably are upset about someone playing with tape backup,” Rideout acknowledged. “But, as a saxophonist, for years, I’ve been sitting home while piano players played solo, or with small groups without sax. There’s not enough money to pay for additional musicians, so I had to go find my own work. It’s a whole question of whether I’m going to work or not.”

Rideout’s magnetic backup may come from necessity, but it is causing some new modes of creativity, such as the original tune he plays on soprano sax against a backdrop of synthesized Indian percussion and digitally sampled wine-glass-rubbing. Overall, he’s an inventive composer with a Shorter-like ear for a catchy soprano line (Rideout also plays alto).

Rideout, who moved to San Diego in 1989 from Madison, Wis., hopes to have a self-produced recording of his newest original music out later this year. He plans to distribute the sometimes jazzy, sometimes spacey music through New Age bookstores.

Performances at Jazz by the Way begin at 8 p.m.

RIFFS: San Diego-based jazz guitarist Barney Kessel will wed San Diego Home/Garden Senior Editor Phyllis Van Doren this Friday at an undisclosed San Diego location. After their honeymoon, Kessel will tour Australia for two weeks in February. . . .

Jude Hibler, publisher of the Jazz Link, the San Diego jazz magazine that ceased publication with the November, 1991, issue, will move to Boulder, Colo., this summer. Her husband has taken an engineering job there.

CRITIC’S CHOICE: ALLISON’S SIGNATURE SOUND

Long before Michael Franks and “Popsicle Toes,” Mose Allison pioneered the laid-back, satirical jazz drawl.

In addition to his warm, friendly vocals, Allison is admired by fans and critics for his odd, rambling piano style, a slightly off-kilter approach that yields a signature sound. Allison hasn’t released a new recording since the 1990 “My Backyard,” but, during the past year, he cooked up a whole new batch of tunes, and he’ll serve these up this week and next at Elario’s.

Allison plans to record this new music in April or May, and it sounds as if he’s up to his usual, fun-loving ways. Among the song titles: “Certified Senior Citizen” (Allison, 64, swears it’s not autobiographical), “This Ain’t Me” (“When you get up around 60, you’ll know all about it,” he explains) and “The Earth Wants You” (“When you feel like no one wants you, remember the Earth wants you--that’s where you’ll end up,” he adds).

Allison will be backed by San Diegans Gary LeFebvre on sax, Gunnar Biggs on bass and Bob Wellar on drums. Allison plays this Thursday through Sunday, and Jan. 30 through Feb. 2.