OT&DO AT THE PLACE

OT&DO was founded in Saint Petersburg Russia back in 2003 with the band's founder Sergey Gorchaninov. The band went through several line-up changes through the years, but wasn't really active until 2012, and it continued to cycle through musicians with Sergey being the only real constant. It wasn't until 2017 that the first EP seen the light of day, and the 2nd EP was released a year later. Finally, in June of 2019, the live album "OT&DO at The Place" was released, and through all of these released, the core band has remained the same: Sergey Gorchaniniov (keyboards), Stanislaw Rybinski (bass), and Nikita Petrov (drums). There is also help from two other musicians on the last half of the album: Pavel Voronkov (saxophone) and Ruslan Sobinin (guitar). This live album consists of 8 tracks of original music and has a total run time of 31 minutes.

The album starts with a nice upbeat jazz fusion style called "Sonata" (5:17). Keyboards and piano take the lead here playing improvisation based off of a chord progression and a bright melody while the bass and drums provide an active support. "Countdown" (5:47) is a more mid-tempo number utilizing an electric piano this time, and the bass is a bit less automatic and able to be more expressive. Again, the music is a nice smooth jazz sound, but there are some issues with the band being a bit disconnected "beat-wise", which happens with live recordings, but it can be a bit distracting at times on this recording. "May I" (3:39) has a more direct and driving beat, and returns to the piano sound, which is probably produced by a keyboard, but the reproduction of the piano sound is very good. This starts with the nice groove, but halfway through breaks down to a more progressive sound which slows everything down. The bass reintroduces the original groove and the track ends on the original theme. The direct beat is affected by the slightly off rhythm problem and the 2nd time through, it loses the effective directness of the beat.

"Night with You" (3:24) goes back to the electric piano sound and a more smooth jazz style. In the trickier sections, things get off beat again. The style is the soft, Dave Grusin style of smooth groove jazz, but with less stress on melody and more on thematic improvisation. The tracks at this point, are short and a bit underdeveloped, or at least sound that way because they go by so fast. "Circus Burnt" (3:04) takes on a more progressive jazz style, but the band can't keep things very tight here, and that is a problem. The composition itself is a good idea, but also could use some development.

"Yalta" (4:47) sees the addition of the sax and guitar to the line-up which continues for the remainder of the album. The piano plays a lower register pattern which the sax soon picks up and then takes off into an improvisation with it. The bass and piano pretty much support while following each other on the groove. The guitar also shines through at times, but the sax seems to take the lead for the most part, and they start to do some exploratory sounds that really don't go anywhere. The muted guitar effects are a bit random and distracting, but the sax holds on and soon the guitar plays along normally. It's a decent track, and it seems the addition of the instruments helped things to be more on point. "To Yrania" (3:54) begins with a soft guitar working out a theme which both it and the piano play around with and the sax soon joins in with them. This slower and smoother sound makes for a nice flowing piece, but there is a slight issue with the band sometimes losing their beat again. As it goes on, this gets better as it all tightens up again. The sax gets quite emotional towards the end and does an impressive job, but it's over too fast. "Road to Caribs" (2:49) ends the album with a smooth groove worked out by the keys and the guitar soon joining in. The band goes for a tropical jazz vibe, but it ends up sounding a bit messy and off-point. It's also too short and underdeveloped. Then the album is done.

The compositions are good enough, it's just that the band needs to get more confident to where they can improvise on the themes better and feel more connected. The little doses of progressiveness are nice, but not as tight as they could be. Practicing with a metronome might help, and in situations where it is hard to hear the other players on stage could be helped with in ear, audible clicks. The band has the right idea, but need to tighten up their sound and get more confident in playing together. Not bad, some might not notice some of these issues so much, but I believe most listeners might come out of it feeling like it was a bit disjointed in some parts. But it's still a great effort and deserving of 3 stars as the production and sound is great.