Tobin Mueller’s “Best?”

Readers may recall that my first encounter with Tobin Mueller involved original jazz that he composed for a staged version of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, released as the album What Survives. That encounter took place in October of 2020, after which my awareness of Mueller’s work gradually faded from memory. However, earlier this month that awareness reawakened when I listened to “Prog Fusion,” the third of five volumes in a Best of Tobin Mueller series.

Cover of the first volume of the Best of Tobin Mueller collection (courtesy of Powderfinger Promotions)

I wrote about this album with the caveat that the genres encountered on this album were far from favorites in my usual jazz listening practices. Fortunately the first two volumes were far closer to my comfort zone. These were titled, respectively, “Jazz Originals” and “Jazz Arrangements.” As I might have guessed, the arrangements accounted for several imaginative approaches to Thelonious Monk. However, that inventiveness was applied to predecessors, such as W. C. Handy and Hoagy Carmichael, as well as a diversity of successors that included James Taylor, Bob Dylan, and Stevie Wonder. The originals included “Frankenfanny” from the What Survives album along with nineteen other tracks. Diversity of instrumentation went a long way towards maintaining attention across the breadth of those tracks.

The remaining two volumes in the collection were titled “Vocals” and “Chill.” Readers may recall that the vocals I had encountered on “Prog Fusion” “never really register with me as jazz and do little more than reinforce why I tend to steer away from the progressive.” In that context the “Vocals” volume amounted to “more of the same,” as did most (but not all) of the vocals on “Chill.” The instrumentals, on the other hand, cover a diverse breadth of originals and arrangements, the latter continuing the spirit behind the “Jazz Arrangements” volume.

Given the number of albums that come to my attention, leading to providing written accounts that try to balance structural specifics against personal preferences, my impressions often come down to whether or not any given album will benefit from repeated listening experiences. Where the Mueller albums now in my collection are concerned, the jury has not yet decided when and how subsequent “visits” will unfold. Suffice it to say that Mueller has secured a firm place in my collection, and I anticipate that memories will be triggered sooner or later!