Normally, the differences between a studio recording and something captured live are enormous, but Robert Miller’s Project Grand Slam is looking to change that in their new album The Shakespeare Concert this February. A direct recreation of a live performance they gave at the end of summer in 2021, this studio performance embodies the uncompromising potency of PGS’s live show without asking us to step away from our headphones, and conceptually speaking, I think it could be the most ambitious project that Miller has undertaken since the start of this new era in pop music recording.
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The harmonies just feel fuller in the versions of “Constable on Patrol” and “Redemption Road” presented to us in The Shakespeare Concert, and I think a lot of this has to do with how incredibly hard the band is cutting loose in every performance here. Nothing is breaking through their continuity, including the mood of an audience – they’re having an open jam session that sounds like something we would never get to hear from a fan perspective in normal circumstances, and if you’re as much of a music nerd as I am, this exclusively makes the new Project Grand Slam Record required listening.
There isn’t a pinch of volatility to this tracklist, as one would typically expect out of a live record, and I think that, while there’s something to be noted about the natural chemistry of the players here, the biggest highlight of this album’s continuity is the leadership Miller brings to the table. He’s got such a dominating personality as a bassist in the songs “New York City Groove,” “Lament,” and “It Is a Miracle to Me,” but he fails to overshadow his counterparts almost out of pure resistance to the notion of creating a cloudy melodic underpinning in his music. That’s surgical precision and exactly what you want in a leading player.
Emotion transcends the limits of lyricism in “No No No,” “Aches and Pains,” “My Baby,” “Constable on Patrol,” and, of course, the significant “Juliet Dances,” the latter of which might be my favorite performance this group has given so far. These guys are making this material so much fresher than anything previously recorded should sound without a complete compositional reworking, and if this is just giving us a glimpse into what their gelling can produce in the right situation, I can’t wait to hear their next proper effort.
If you’ve been listening to Project Grand Slam for any real length of time, you’re going to be overjoyed at the detail and solid delivery Robert Miller and company afford all fifteen songs in The Shakespeare Concert. This is no amateur indie offering; contrarily, I would challenge anyone in the market for smart alternative jazz and fusion to name a more complete record debuting this February outside of The Shakespeare Concert, which I’m already going to go out on a limb and rank as a contender for one of the best LPs of its genre to make a big splash in 2022.
Troy Johnstone