Band: Jeff Scheetz Band
Album title: Behind The Mask
Label: Bam-Zoom! Records
Distributor: Own Label
Release date: 2008
Release: CD

Best known for his instrumental solo albums (starting with 1988’s Warp Speed followed 1990’s Woodpecker Stomp, 1992’s Dig!, 1997’s Pawn Shop, and 2000’s Christmas…At Last), New Jersey guitarist Jeff Scheetz has nevertheless been known to work in band constellations. He’d been part of Heavy Metal act Monster (had a couple of tracks on the High Plains Rocks compilation albumissued through Black Attack Productions in 1989) during the late ‘80s, was a member of Sign Of The Times (who issued the 1995 album titled Disengage), and auditioned with Lament (obviously not the, also NJ based, Metalcore act by the same name). On the side, Jeff is also a respected in the educational field, and released an instructional video, a book/CD combination, and a total of 7 instructional cd-R albums (issued by Truefire). He’s been endorsed by DC Cases, Avlex microphones, Ernie Ball Strings, and Yamaha guitars, for whom he’s performed over 300 clinics throughout the US. As a result, he’s been featured in most big guitar magazines worldwide.  As a live artist, he’s toured all over the US and been to Mexico and Europe, sharing stages with the likes of Cheap Trick, Scorpions, Joan Jett, ELO, Eric Johnson, .38 Special, Jeff Healey, Steve Vai, and many more.

The unit consisting of Jeff, singer/ bassist Madd Waddill and drummer Kent Burnham (with the addition of B3 Hammond keyboardist Ted Gardner) released a first album as the Jeff Scheetz Band with 2003’s album Beggars, Rogues & Thieves. Both Waddill and Burnham have played with Jeff for a long time, the latter even going back to Jeff’s now “classic” Woodpecker Stomp and having acted as Jeff’s live drummer on and off over the years; the first debuting on said album as singer for JSB (I’m not sure when his tenure as bassist with Jeff started). Jeff’s first love in music was Blues, Blues Rock, and the early “Jam” bands of the ‘70s, and while he’s always had sóme of that in his instrumental albums, it’s with the Jeff Scheetz Band albums that he’s first let that come to the fore completely.

Thanks to the addition of a certain degree of Funk…and thanks to the very soulful vocals, you can expect the music on both Beggars… and Behind The Mask to be somewhat remeniscent of Robin Trower (era late ‘70s – early ‘80s), and therefore also to a certain extend of Jimi Hendrix! But Behind The Mask contains a total of 14 songs with a certain diversity nevertheless, and whiffs of the likes of Eric Clapton, Stevie Ray, and even Rory Gallagher or Jeff Beck occasionally come flirting along as well. In between the songs you’ll get a couple of instrumentals, of which the short (only 85 seconds) “B. Marie” is an acoustic guitar solo. More acoustics come with the quiet ballad “It’s Just Me” (which may well be conceived for the singer to be played as a “solo” instant on stage, the only additions to it being some sparce tambourine and a short and calm bass drum run). The songs all have emotions running high, coming to a high point with a cover of Michael George‘s “Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me” (a song he wrote/ sang as a duet with EltonJohn).

To get a whiff of the music on this album (plus the previous JSB album, as well as Jeff’s instrumental music) you could now surf to MySpace (.com/jeffscheetz), but actually you’ll find much more material at jeffscheetz.com! You’ll agree the stuff is rather great, even if Waddill’s voice could be a little deeper for bigger effect…but then we would be wishing for to many resemblances to the established bands of ‘ole, wouldn’t we? As things are, JSB has its own soul…and that’s still the best way to go!

89/100

Tony.