Reviews

Artist:Jordi Baizan
Album: The Love In You
Label: Berkalin Records
Tracks: 11
Website: https://www.jordibaizan.com/

Three years on from Free and Fine, the Texas singer-songwriter returns with his third album, his aim being to inspire people to connect with their best self and the spirit of love and creativity, sometimes referred to as the flow state. Drawing on influences from early 70s records by James Taylor and Carole King, the album opens proceedings with 'Palm Reader', a gentle train rhythm chug is inspired by a friendship with someone struggling with addiction and its side effects of shame, self-destructive behaviour and self-isolation, of extending, a la 'You've Got A Friend', a helping hand ("If you need someone to talk to,/I've nowhere else to be"), cheekily quoting from Lennon and McCartney in the line "Do you need anybody/I just need someone to love Could it be anybody/I just want someone to love".

The similarly acoustic, laid back 'Coffee With You in the Morning' is an autobiographical rumination on the ritual of having coffee in the morning with the one you love, grounding you after a sleepless night, that warm fuzziness extending to the piano-backed walking beat anthemic cascading chords title track that (like 'All You Need is Love') pretty much speaks for itself ("There's nothing like the love in you to break through all the pain/I know the world could be made new if we learned to love this way").

Another slow swayer, with organ and Rich Brotherton on tenor guitar, 'The Next Right Thing' is about not spending all your time wondering what's ahead and building your big brass ring and remembering to live in the moment ("Looking in the mirror now/I'm learning to befriend reality/One thing that I know for sure, you're here for me/Standing by the ones you love").

The longest track at almost six minutes, the piano and cello-accompanied, slow paced semi-spoken 'Looking For A Heart' was inspired by a lengthy Uber trip in Florida where the driver, Michael, recounted his experience as a heart transplant recipient. By coincidence, the following day Baizan was travelling to Turks and Caicos where the donor, Sasha, had died and, connected by Michael who'd met her by chance, he hooked up with his mother, turning their stories into the song told through the voice of Sasha, underlining the mysterious ways in which we can all be connected.

Taking a darker turn, set to a choppy strummed rhythm 'Caught Up And Tangled In You' concerns someone trapped in a toxic relationship ("Why do I keep coming back for more/When the best thing I could do is never see you again?") but then a sunnier outlook returns for the fingerpicked acoustic 'The Way of the World', his voice reminding me slightly of Don McLean, a cross-generation song inspired by his children ("When you were young, we'd shield you from the TV/The cruelty and hatred on the news") and parents ("I'm proud that he's my Dad/He taught us all with fire and conviction/I'll always hear the passion in his voice/"Son, it's just a fact that there is right and wrong/It's up to you to make the choice") the line about "chasing dreams in New York City" a reference to his oldest daughter, and a reminder that we don't have to go with the flow because "The way of the world is not the only way".

Returning to the earlier theme of not chasing down wealth while letting life pass by, inspired by (but not about) a friend who retired early and missed the sense of purpose, 'Money Goes Cold' relates the story of an ageing retired wealthy man, sitting at home with no purpose ("the phone stops buzzing/Golf gets old/Days drag long"), remembering his past drive for success, what it cost him ("he sees glimpses/Of the friends he had to cut/And the tears his red-faced Mary cried/The day that she drove off/Nick and Sarah still side with their mom/There are fences you can't mend" and contemplating his situation ("He's off of the adrenaline/And the moths are eating him alive") as he spends Christmas in an empty house.

Again he dispels the darkness with musical and lyrical light for the joyful 'My Namesake', inspired by hearing children from the Congo singing in Soukous, a fusion of Congolese folk music with Cuban "son", a resonance with his own roots, and featuring Irish cittern, a celebration of birth and about children being the hope for the future ("Little one, you've arrived with such mighty lungs/One day you will speak up for the voiceless ones") the chorus being happy birthday sung in Swahili.

The same sentiment informs the fingerpicked lullabying A New World in which, referencing Selma and the civil rights movement, food lines and homelessness, a grandfather acknowledges the shortcomings of his generation and expresses his hope that his grandchild and his generation can turn things around ("If there's a new world, you'll create it/If there's a new world, your hands will shape it/If there's a new world, your heart will be a bridge for us to cross/To the paradise we thought was lost").

It ends, then, Bart de Win on accordion, with 'Take Your Time', a co-write with Jackson Emmer who told him how he sat next to his pregnant wife and talked to the baby ("Hello in there, this is your Dad/Your mom and I are sitting on the couch/The mac and cheese was good tonight/I love you, and I hope you're doing well", inspiring another song about hope for the future to "Just find true love/And let it grow/And to your kids/I hope you'll sing/Songs of your own". Share the love.

Mike Davies

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