(Jazz-influenced Rock): Mando Saenz's Watertown

I remember listening to the first side of Lyle Lovett’s And His Large Band on the Cities 97 in Minneapolis/St. Paul on their “Album Side Saturday Night.” The DJ said that one of the songs had won for best country music song, but he wasn’t sure which one it was. It wasn’t so surprising that he wouldn’t know which song, because he had only played the first side—the jazzy, big band songs. The second side was the country side.

Mando Saenz lands next to Lyle Lovett in the Spectrum, because Saenz plays the country side of Lovett. While Lovett is in the Jazz-influenced Rock section for good reason, and Saenz doesn’t really have that jazz side of things, think of his placement in the Spectrum as a bit like of a parentheses. You can’t listen to Saenz’s Watertown and not hear Lovett’s country croon.

With its mandolin-layered acoustic guitar beginning, the album opens sounding like something from Lovett’s Step Into This House. Of course, this first song called “Julia” can’t help but also recall Lovett and his ex-wife Julia Roberts. Sweet fiddle further the longing tone of this song by a prisoner pining for his Julia.

“April’s End” rocks forward a bit more with a hooky, syncopated chorus melody section. Instrumentation on this album strives against being too muted in the production, and on “April’s End,” a deep note guitar solo bounces along. If the musicians had been given a little bit more space, they could’ve added to the songs much in the way James McMurtry’s bands have often punctuated his story-songs.

The swing-blues of “Egg Song” comes closest to being like the jazz side of Lovett. This song helps call to mind this side of Lovett, too, with its tongue-in-cheek (I think) hope for a “girl to cook my eggs for me today.” This is probably the only song to think of Betty Crocker and Aunt Jamima as sex objects.

Thanks to Mando Saenz and the Carnival Recording Company for the review copy.