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Live at Sips Cafe

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"Live at Sips Cafe is a gorgeous collection of standards and truly one of the prettier and more enlightening jazz albums I have heard this year."
Reviewer Paul Barbatono

The Liner Notes from Live at Sips Cafe

When Tim Berens wrote that he’d be opening up that Great American Songbook to anchor a live (!) set of dual jazz guitar sessions— with Dan Faehnle no less — it was just the sort of project that promised. But it also promised that awkward task of introducing music that requires no introduction whatsoever played by two musicians requiring little more than that themselves.

I needn’t have worried of course. Not only does the musical partnership that’s developed between Berens and Faehnle over their many sessions trump any weedy attempt I might make to describe it, but this album itself is such a great pleasure — and on many levels.

Of course, with tunes from Berlin to Benson and "What’ll I Do" to "Bossa Rocka" your recipe can be as simple as pressing the PLAY button. These wonderful standards just come pouring out of your speakers with a sunny balance of swing and surprise, bestowing the nicest possible musical setting for whatever your Saturday evening might hold.

Be forewarned that you’ll return for some careful listening though, maybe to take in Dan’s intelligent energy as he rips into Charlie Parker’s "Segment" or the glowing clarity of Tim’s exposition of "Nightengale …" Or Berens’s rhythm work in Bernie’s Tune might just remind you of Basie, the way his almost endless variety of little inversions and deft syncopations brings a shimmer to the sound that keeps every repeat fresh and alive. Or Faehnle’s lyrical — then swinging — "I Hear a Rhapsody" that beguiles you into following his progressively sophisticated solo lines.

But individual musicianship aside, the greatest delights here come from the elegant interplay between Berens and Faehnle, and that’s really the whole point. Start with Dan’s compelling and melancholy reading of "The Birds and The Bees" — when he hands the solo off it’s almost imperceptible as Tim takes that same feeling forward, now all bittersweet minor 7ths and 9ths. But after just one refrain, Berens gives it back while etching a distinct new backdrop for Faehnle’s ending — which has now somehow acquired a whole new courage.

Later, Berens and Faehnle hold the Sips Café audience in a trance — and sometimes tears — with a velvet "What’ll I Do?" lasting almost six minutes until it vanishes into thin air. Here the two guitarists become close to being one single instrument, never breaking the spell and leaving behind no trace except your own reflections.

And finally there’s a marvelous "Rhythm-A-Ning," here as unpredictable and angular and witty as Monk himself. It gathers cleverly, exploring a few fragmented scales, unisons and the briefest fugue while Mike Sharfe’s hopping, slapping, growling and really masterful bass provides both warp and woof. The solos invent themselves until my favorite moment of the album as Faehnle on rhythm insistently suspends a scale one note below the tonic and four bars before the repeat. The flabbergasted Berens retreats straight down in four giant-step octaves and then — as Tim himself puts it — "chaos ensues."

Listening to jazz couldn’t be more fun, watching the pair throw ideas at each other like cream pies until finally Berens presents the seminal Gershwin theme in such a deadpan, four-square quote that you just might laugh out loud. Of course both neither Dan nor Tim "got rhythm" — it’s only Mike’s bass that’s kept the whole thing from flying apart for a long, long time.

Like the Sips waiter might say, "You’re going to enjoy this..."

Tony van Seventer