CD review: The Todd Tijerina Band, Now (self-released, 2007)

By Rachel Heisler

You don’t listen to the blues, you live it. You don’t hear the funk, you feel it. And if you’re Albuquerque’s Todd Tijerina, you’re submerged in both.

For 12 years, Tijerina (Tee-her-ee-na) has been paying the bills by playing. From 1997 to 2000, he was part of the Chicago blues-rock circuit as guitarist for such blues hounds as Byther Smith, Harmonica Hinds and Shirley King. He and his band won Chicagoland’s Rory’s Blues Talent Competition in 1999, and more recently, The Todd Tijerina Band (with Tijerina as frontman singer and guitarist), which includes drummer Matt Tessler and bassist Marco Topo, has recorded Now, a CD that pairs traditional blues riffs with unfaltering guitar that’s padded with rock and jazz flavors.

“I try to sound like me and no one else,” Tijerina said. “Generally I build around a bass line that I’ve written and try to invent a melody for the top, incorporating funk, rock and jazz ideas.” And the construction of his songs does have an underlying brick-by-brick-built feel: the layers of instrumentation are precise and premeditated, nothing left to chance. Tijerina’s sensitive ear provides listeners with a clean sound that’s easy to grasp.

As any purist would attest, there’s no need to screw up whiskey by adding coke to it, and there’s no need to mess up the blues with a bunch of extraneous frills. As Tijerina ascertains, all you need to do is grab hold to that smoky E chord and let the progression riiiiiiide (“E-Jam”). If “Sometimes” isn’t a tribute song to Stevie Ray Vaughn it’s at least a nod in the blues master’s direction, and the guitar wails in all the right places.

But don’t limit your Tijerina band listening experience to Now. When in the Duke City, make a point to catch a live performance. “We love to entertain and and we’re a high-energy group,” Tijerina said. “We live to play and we play to live, and each night is a different experience … but then, that’s the blues.”