"Five Bucks A Bungalow" is a blistering blues in F from Jonathan Kreisberg Trio's 2004 album New For Now, featuring the longest and most extroverted guitar solo on the record. Kreisberg tears through fourteen choruses of the 12-bar blues form at 256 beats per minute, building from spare opening phrases through increasingly complex harmonic superimpositions to a climax of ferocious intensity. His command of the blues idiom is comprehensive, drawing on elements of bebop, post-bop, and contemporary jazz guitar while maintaining the emotional directness that the form demands. Gary Versace follows with ten choruses on Hammond organ, his playing equally authoritative as he exploits the full tonal palette of the instrument, from gritty blues growls to sweeping upper-register runs. Mark Ferber caps the performance with a five-chorus drum solo that brings structural logic and rhythmic imagination to the extended form. The blues is the ultimate proving ground in jazz, and this performance demonstrates that the Kreisberg trio can generate the kind of combustible energy and sustained creative invention the form requires. The whimsical title adds a touch of humor to what is otherwise a dead-serious display of trio jazz at its most powerful.
