DR. ANTHONY FESMIRE

For the last quarter century, Outside Pedestrian has created exciting, eclectic, and often unpredictable instrumental music drawing from a range of influences including jazz, rock, blues, funk, surf, metal, and classical chamber music. How the band has pursued that goal has developed over the course of their four studio albums. For their latest album, Time Zones, they took full advantage of the coinciding events of band members relocating across the US and the upheaval of the pandemic to create a cohesive and inspired collaboration that draws on each musician’s high level performance background and studio production experience.

 

The new album features eight songs co-written by guitarist Dr. Anthony Fesmire and bassist David Lockeretz, who had previously collaborated on only one track: “Scorned Woman” from the first album, Pedestrian Crossing. For Time Zones, the composition process typically involved one of the writers creating a riff, groove, chord progression, or section and then passing it onto the other, who would add and modify the ideas until a complete tune was created. Some of the tracks, such as the jazz-rock ballad “Slowly Falling”, use traditional jazz forms, with a melody being played, a chord progression improvised upon and the melody restated. Others such as “Rogues Gallery” have multiple sections that explore different time signatures, grooves, dynamic levels, and textures while being tied together by recurring musical themes and motives.

 

Two of the tunes pay homage to musical legends lost recently. “Messenger” is influenced by jazz composer, Wayne Shorter (1933-2023), using the type of non-functional harmonies often heard in tunes that the saxophonist recorded in the 1960s with Miles Davis, on his own Blue Note albums, and subsequent fusion period. “Envoy” pays tribute Jeff Beck (1944-2023), using a melody that echoes the spirit of “Goodbye Pork Pie Hat” (the Mingus standard that Beck brought to wider audiences in the 1970s) with a groove influenced by “Behind the Veil”, a reggae-flavored ballad from the 1989 album, Guitar Shop.

 

Time Zones is also the first Outside Pedestrian album to feature a cover song: an original arrangement of the instrumental guitar classic “Walk, Don’t Run.” Written by guitarist Johnny Smith, the tune was based on the chords to the standard “Softly As In A Morning Sunrise” and was recorded by Chet Atkins before being made famous by the surf-rock band the Ventures in 1960. The Outside Pedestrian arrangement showcases the work of drummers David Oromaner and Steve Tashjian, who respectively played on the albums Reclaimed and Pedestrian Crossing. While each drummer displays his considerable skill on four of the Time Zones compositions individually, on “Walk, Don’t Run”, they trade solos and groove together to help the band create an updated version of the tune that retains the energy and drive of the Ventures’ classic.

 

The album title, Time Zones, refers to the distance between the band members as the album was being created along with their creative use of the musical element of time: odd and mixed meter, superimposed time signatures, and a variety of rhythmic feels help to create an exciting and engaging listening experience.