Two years have passed since one of Chad Jasmine’s first performances inside The Mill restaurant at The Jacksonville Landing. There, Jasmine was little more than a stand-up comic with a guitar. He was Adam Sandler with more musical skill. He sang odes to cigarettes and laughed with the crowd that was either listening or drinking heavily and passing out on the brick floor. And though he let the attentive people in on his jokes, he did seem to be holding something back, jokes only for himself. On his new CD, The Greatest of Ease (Parlay Records), those comic pretenses are gone, and no opinion or insight is left un-spoken. Jasmine’s group consists of Kip Kolb on keyboards, Scott Borlan on bass guitar and Greg Isabelle on drums. They have put together a mature collection of songs that weaves all sorts of musical influences into a cohesive yet meandering sound. Their songs provide vivid stories about society and relationships. Rock, jazz, hip-hop and funk elements show up on different songs, giving each one a unique feel. For example, there’s The Wind and Too Bad, two slow ballads. There’s Bad Pigs and No Love, tow upbeat catchy tunes. In Days Dream uses a repetitive jazz loop sample to drive a stark portrait of drug addiction. Funk and jazz influences give Stupid Jazz and Colours a sweeping feel. Regardless of what type of flavor Jasmine and his crew want to inject into a song, it never seems like the group is just building on some other musician’s idea. Each song allows Jasmine to morph his voice to fit the characters he creates in the songs, be it a drug addict, a broken-hearted lover or even a ladybug that believes professional sports is the United States’ true culture. The only thing missing from the CD is some example of the group’s wildly frenetic stage presence. Jasmine and company put on psychedelic performances, mesmerizing audiences with bold and blaring music. On the CD, the restraint in each song does make the story the focus, but it also gets tedious after awhile. Shades of each of the band members’ musical skill show up occasionally, just enough to make the listener want more. Then again, after eviscerate themselves to make the stories so poignant, maybe Jasmine and the band had simply nothing left to give. Final grade: B+

by: Mark Faulkner - T-U Rap staff writer