The name Greg Koch, for many an aspiring guitarist, will be a familiar one, for he is known for his tenure as an international ambassador for Fender guitars. He has also released a number of popular albums and gained praise from a number of quarters, including Joe Bonamassa who refers to Greg as “scary good”. On this album, the debut for the Koch Marshall Trio, Greg has teamed up with his son Dylan; who has forged a successful career on drums, backing the likes of Jared James Nichols; and Toby Marshall, an exceptionally talented exponent upon the legendary Hammond B3. Together, the trio deal in wildly unpredictable, improvisational jams that eschew vocals for exceptional musicianship and yet which never fall into the trap of becoming a virtuoso workshop. The result is ‘Toby Arrives’, an eight-track album that is so imbued with a sense of wide-eyed wonder at the thrill of laying, that it flies by, it’s enthusiasm as undimmed at the conclusion as it is at the outset and which is all the more infectious for it.
Remarkably, the first track that you hear is also the first jam that the band ever played. Walking into the room to find the drums and the B3 all mic’ed up, the band launched straight into a jam and it’s an amazing thing to hear. Whilst Greg and Dylan may have a shared musical sensibility thanks to the familial bond, you can almost hear Greg and Toby sizing each other up as they trade solos back and forth, and the piece is as electrifying to listen to on disc as it must have been to lay down in the studio. It’s easy to understand how the trio, in hearing the tapes back, immediately decided that these tracks were worthy of release, and it is a simple pleasure, in these days of artists digitally sanitising every single note, to hear an honest representation of a band in the raw. The remainder of the album is no less spontaneous and the aptly-titled ‘funk meat’ with its Hammond squelches and sweet solos is slyly sensual and slinky. Rather more driven, the brilliantly-titled ‘heed the boogaloo’ is powered by Dylan Koch’s taut rhythms but it’s the jazz-inflected ‘let’s get sinister’ that brings the first half of the album to a sizzling close with its arch solos and psychedelic feel.
The second half of the album opens with the sweetly melodic ‘Mysterioso’, a track that recalls Joe Satriani at his most reflective. It’s a track with one of those melodies that sits long in the brain and the guitars are inflected with just a touch of raw, valve distortion (giving them edge rather than bite) and Greg offers up some of the album’s most sublime soloing on this track. It’s time to put on your boogie shoes for the toe-tapping ‘enter the rats’, Toby’s deft percussion providing the perfect backdrop for Greg’s astounding fret-board work and Toby’s energetic assault upon the keys. The sort of track that will leave you beaming with delight, it’s a treasure, as is the slightly grittier ‘boogie yourself Drade’. Based around a blazing riff, ‘boogie…’ is guaranteed to be a live monster, and it’s high time the band appeared in England to leave scorch marks on the dance floor with this monstrous workout. The final track on this all-too-short album is ‘sin repent repeat’, a piece that recalls elements of Genesis back when Steve Hackett was guitarist. As across the whole album, Greg doesn’t try to dazzle the listener with technicality, instead his guitar cries out over the track as he invests each lick with elements of his own personality. However, whilst Greg’s warm guitar tones may strike the listener first, it is the interplay between all three musicians that sits at the heart of this album’s success, and the more you listen, the more you appreciate the dynamic musical conversation that you can hear unfolding in front of you.
The first release from a new imprint on Mascot, The Players’ Club, ‘Toby Arrives’ sets the bar remarkably high. It’s the sort of release that washes over you like the first rays of a warming sun, and it leaves you feeling elated, such is the joy with which the trio embark upon each track. Instrumental albums can be a tricky thing to pull off – there’s a temptation to replace the vocals with excessive technicality – but Greg, Toby and Dylan embark upon each piece in an incredibly organic and natural way. Nothing is overthought and, as a result, nothing is overwrought either. It’s simply great music, nothing more and nothing less, and having the opportunity to review the album was an absolute treat. 9
