Tim Motzer has King Britt to thank for a lot of things, but Jazzheads isn’t among them-directly, at least. Lately, it seems the talented, low-key guitarist for King Britt’s living, breathing, funky acid-jazz project, Sylk 130, has taken the entr�e into loftier East Coast player circles provided him by Britt and run with it. The result: avant wot not (1k), the first standard-issue cd from Motzer’s Jazzheads quartet. The 10-track effort is a nimble, all instrumental excursion into the disparate corners of all that boogies, simmers and swings, from acid jazz to improve, from drum n bass to funk.

“It’s kind of looking back at what has gone down-from the 70’s up to this moment in time-and also looking a bit toward the future,” says Motzer of the new album, which is available at Jazzheads gigs and on the web at
www.1krecordings.com.

Aside from Motzer (whose credits also include work with Kenny Lattimore and Isaac Hayes), the group includes drummer Ari Hoenig (James Hurt, Richard Bona), bassist Ben Bocardo (Everlast, Bass-X) and sax player Chris Cuzme (Leslie Chueng). That combined experience pretty much ensures that the playing in dizzyingly fine throughout. But what’s most compelling about avant wot not is its unhampered sense of fun, an “up” vibe that carries listeners over some rought compositional patches and murky stylistic transitions.

That giddy quotient should come as no surprise, seeing as Jazzheads were, in essence, born out of a simple love of playing. “Ari Hoenig and myself kind of met through the house band at Silk City,” Motzer recalls. “He used to come out and listen every Monday night. One night we started talking, and he said, ‘Hey man, you want to
come out and play some night?’ And I said, ‘Sure man, let’s do it.’ I had a bunch of tunes, we booked some gigs and it just jelled.”

Not that Sylk 130’s points of origins weren’t a blast in their own right. But what began as a Silk City house band overseen by Britt will always bear his overwhelming influence-as it should (“It was something Britt had in his mind for a long time.” Motzer says). While a more collaborative spirit is said to inform the upcoming Sylk 130 release (due this fall on Britt’s Columbia-affiliated Ovum label), nothing beats running your own show. And Jazzheads is, by and large Motzer’s baby.

“There are certain flavors reminiscent [of Sylk 130],” he says. “But this is a jazz thing. It’s all tunes that I wrote or collaborated on with Chris Cuzme. The thing about the band is the interplay that’s happening; it’s really collective improvisation.”
Hobart Rowland Philadelphia Weekly