Jason Sadites – Orbit

Now for something a little more conventional (as far as guitarists go, anyway.) Jason Sadites is another superb player. An interesting thing about Sadites is by the age of sixteen he was already mature enough in his playing to pass some of his knowledge on to a roster of sixty-plus students in his home town, Timmins, Ontario, Canada.

After fifteen years of honing some of his other talents which include his composition skills and his audio engineering ‘mastery,’ he has now given us his first solo instrumental guitar CD, entitled Orbit.

Jason knows how to dig in and at the same time he makes his strat sing with some beautifully written melodies that stick in your head for most of the day. I hear a lot of Satch and Vai mixed with Eric Johnson (remember the first G3 tour?) I kept hearing other remnants and feels that I recognized but I had trouble placing it and then it dawned on me -Jeff Beck. But at the same time, these are just influences I hear. Jason has a style that is his own.

The CD opens with the title track and I must say it does give you the feeling of floating gravity-less. Like most of the tunes on this CD, The Orbit is very lyrical. I thoroughly enjoy guitar CDs like this, that have some substance rather than a million mile an hour shred fest that usually leaves me warn out or yawning by the third or fourth track. Now don’t get me wrong – I was amazed at Jason’s control- because he can shred. He just does it in a way that is subtle and meaningful to the song. In fact I was blown away a few times as he likes to dig into a raunchy, gritty bend that is synonymous of something that Keith Richards might do and then follow it up with some of the most pristine sounding shred riffs I’ve heard.

Along with the melodies, grit and subtle shred, there’s a bit more to Sadites’ groove. He’s very creative with added rhythm parts. In fact there’s a funky little thing he is doing in a track called Not So Evil that just makes the song. But all in all, my favorite track is probably the simplest one on the CD. It’s a ballad called Away. Every now and then I find a song that just has the simplest melody and I can’t believe how much I am drawn to it. My wife adores the song and her taste in music is more refined than my own. It really has to be good before she will give it the time of day.

Now for the best thing about Jason Sadites’ Orbit– the CD sounds incredible. It’s probably the best engineered CD I’ve heard in a few years. In fact, I am considering having Jason mix my next solo project if his rates don’t go thru the roof before I get to it. Which is saying a lot- because I live in Arizona and Jason now resides in Florida. So I would essentially be turning over the controls to the board completely. He’s that good.

In my opinion Jason Sadites has taken guitar styles of the past and made them fresh again with his own flavor. I would say he’s a good candidate for Best New Guitar Player.