JOE DENINZON & STRATOSPHEERIUS – Behind The Curtain: Live At ProgStock

Melodic Revolution 2023

JOE DENINZON
& STRATOSPHEERIUS –
Behind The Curtain:
Live At ProgStock

Stepping into the light, American forceful foursome bring out delicious detail of their before-the-audience act.

There have been Jean-Luc Ponty and Jerry Goodman, David Cross and Darryl Way, so it was only logical that the next high-profile violinist bridging jazz- and art-rock would have “JD” for initials; and there’s an ultimate justice in this Joe Deninzon and STRATOSPHEERIUS on-stage package emerging when the New Jerseyan has just joined KANSAS. Consisting of two CDs, a DVD and a Blu-ray with the same content, “Behind The Curtain” captures his quartet at a popular festival, based in the same state, twice, in 2019 and 2021, displaying the collective’s rapid development within a short span of time and their command of sophisticated material coming from the group’s last albums – with 2012’s "The Next World…" represented by quite a few cuts. First and foremost, though, here’s a team serving up a riveting spectacle to target the listener’s senses.

Still, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to expect any chamber-like delicacy, or mercy, from this ensemble who offer their followers the riff-driven titular number and the equally heavy “Take Your Medicine” as gambits, Deninzon attacking his electric violin and vocal chords with enviable fierceness, as the backdrop projections are haunted with politically charged imagery that contrasts the pieces’ memory-bound refrains, especially when brought to the home screen. The band leader’s entrancing – aurally and visually – delivery is reflected in the abandon bassist Paul Ranieri and guitarist Michelangelo Quirinale demonstrate via delicate strum, slap and choral harmonies on such folk-informed, finely filigreed gems as “Release” and “Impostor” where Joe’s voice and bow reveal their full performance-focused supple spectrum and the instrumental dynamics are enhanced by colorful lights and concept footage which combine to create a genuine progressive experience, while somewhat undermining a pure concert feel when turned into an effect-laden video.

There’s a more natural flow to the country-flavored “Climbing” that, live, becomes a vibrant paean to artistry even after its tender fibers solidify and break free, banishing Deninzon into the audience to startle the punters who might have been lulled by the song’s idyllic start, and there’s art-rock getting distilled to translucence in his dance on “The Missing Link” – but then there’s “Game Of Chicken” to bare the baroque edge the players marry to infectious funk before Joe and Michelangelo’s strings exchange furious licks and soar for a series of stinging solos. Yet whereas “The Prism” expands an enchantingly angry Eastern theme to an almost orchestral scope, the epic “Heavy Shtettle” takes another klezmer motif – a nuanced echo of JD’s Russian Jewish heritage – to the magnum-opus drama topped with a thunderous, “Misirlou”-quoting showcase from Ranieri.

Supplanting the onslaught with different sensibilities, the graceful presence of the white-clad Rachel Flowers’ piano and flute and drummer Jason Gianni duetting with Deninzon blow the ballad “Storm Surge” up to a small symphony, yet, once Alex Skolnick’s acoustic guitar joins Joe’s acoustic violin and an ivories-sculpted snippet of “Concierto de Aranjuez” opens the gates into the elegant “Spain” that doesn’t require more than the three jazz-minded musicians, the most exquisite aspect of JD’s classical wonder will be flaunted for all to breathlessly admire and wildly applaud. Factor in intensely imaginative, creatively unhinged covers of MUSE’s “Hysteria” and KING CRIMSON’s “Frame By Frame” upping STRATOSPHEERIUS’ percussive ante – as opposed to the polished “One Foot In The Next World” that finishes this flaming set by finding the leader in a Hendrix mode, with his nose operating the fingerboard – and there’s a symbolic bridging of the past and the future which mere mortals rarely can achieve.

This band can – and their ProgStock documents are a testament to that.

*****

June 8, 2023