Links Page

Thank for stopping by. A special thanks to everyone I've contacted so far. Hopefully, we can keep this page growing as we continue to celebrate Chuck Cuminale's musical legacy. The new CD, "Greatest Hits" (check out Stubdaddy for more info)is a great collection of Chuck's music, everyone who's a fan of this band should definitely go out and buy two copies, one for yourself and another to turn somebody else on to!

Jaffe's Colorblind James Page (keyboardist for CBJE)
The Best Band you never heard of (Fan Website)

UK Fan of CBJE...Awesome Site! [now mirrored, appears to have gone down :-(]
Colorblind on UBL (The "ultimate" band list)
See what they have to say about Colorblind on the Trouser Press Website.
Call of the Wild New CD reviewed in Syracuse New Times
Tunes.com's "Why Should I Stand Up" Page
The lyrics to "Memphis"

The JAMBASE: If you like the CBJE, check out some of the other bands listed here!

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Lifted Review

Colorblind James Experience I Could Be Your Guide [B+] (Death Valley, 1996)

13 tr; 62:04 recorded by gary holt personnel: rita coulter: voc; gary holt: bass; ethan lyons: sax, b voc; charles jaffe: keys; colorblind james: r gtr, vibraphone, voc; jim mcavaney:drums; tommy tramontana: ld gtr, b voc

Colorblind James has a reputation for making life hard on critics who try to pigeonhole his music, but i'm not falling for it. Admittedly, there's a good bit of stylistic variation herein, but there are common denominators as well. Among them, the level of musicianship is consistently high, and the playing is thoroughly tasteful. "Tasteful" is often polite code for "boring," but not in this case -- heck, some of those vibraphone flourishes are positively Zappa-like -- but you won't find big heaps of distortion, skronky feedback squeals or excessive discordance on this album. You'll find a bunch of good songs, which admittedly don't fall into a flavor-of-the-month genre, which probably limits the audience this record will find -- which is a cryin' shame, 'cause it's awful fine stuff.
Songwriter and primary vocalist Colorblind James has a dry, often sing-song vocal delivery that might call to mind a less pretentious David Byrne with just a trace of a southern accent. Rita Coulter takes the lead on a few of the numbers, her warm, smooth, but not overly smooth voice providing some nice contrast, especially on the disc's sole cover tune, a Bessie Smith-inspired reading of "See If I'll Care." James has a pleasantly skewed lyrical sense, mixing the surreal and the vaguely spiritual, witness (from "Guiding Light"):

I don't know exactly when it was that i first picked up the trail it had something to do with an acorn on the ground it had something to do with the score of a baseball game Or a book under a business woman's arm

There are two many good moments to mention here, but i will single out perhaps the album's centerpiece, "Evil Mask," a nine-minute song that doesn't ever get boring, or even feel overlong -- a pretty rare achievement in my book even before the more startling revelations that there's both a brief guitar solo that sounds like it deliberately paraphrases Mark Knopflers endless riffing on Dire Straits' breakthrough hit, "Sultans of Swing" and a mid-section the lyrics of which might be suitable for a TV preacher, and it still doesn't suck. Rather than belabor the issue, I'll just quote one more of my favorite lyrics and leave well enough alone. (from "Maybe I Will"):

I found a dead man on the porch this morning That's right there was a dead man on the porch He was hanging from the neck, He was blue and cold as heck They say that he'd been carrying a torch

p.s.: if you want to go buy this record, which you ought to do, look for the groovy Sergeant Pepper-styled cover, which makes it look a lot more psychedelic than it is, and if my testimonial isn't enough, remember that the grifters love 'em too.

all content from quoted sources referenced to site of origin

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