The self-titled debut from the Olympians is a quintessential Daptone Records release, featuring many of the label’s best musicians as commissioned by the pianist and vibraphonist Toby Pazner. Pazner has played on many Daptone records himself, but he’s also occupied a Daptone-adjacent space as the keyboardist for the soul singer Lee Fields and others. That Aloe Blacc “I Need a Dollar” song you couldn’t escape—or stop listening to—in 2010? It was Pazner who played the signature piano take.
As a listener, there’s a certain delight in chasing down session musicians in an album’s credits and threading together their careers. In jazz especially, that type of context is rewarding, knowing that this guy played with that guy and is now leading his own thing with both of them involved. This is the position Pazner is in with the Olympians, commanding a group of regulars that includes members of the Dap-Kings, Lee Fields’ band, and other players like Michael Leonhart, a noted trumpet prodigy who directs Steely Dan’s band and was formerly a house player for the now-defunct label Truth and Soul Records. The Olympians is a Pazner pet project years in the making: piling these instrumentalists on top of each other, boxing them in with smart arrangements, and then letting them out to play.
A lot of The Olympians will sound familiar to Daptone devotees, but Pazner sneaks some ambitious switch-ups into a form frequently tied to grooves, and the addition of a sparse string section lends some space and delicacy to the sound. The usual discrete building blocks are never far: chugging wah-wah guitar, a persistently syncopated horn section, impeccable percussion. Halfway through “Venus,” a characteristically lush track that leans on bowing sideline strings, the song breaks in half—silent in the middle—to reveal a bumbling, then barking, then breathy, then rambling trumpet solo I’ve listened to dozens of times. Pazner smartly deploys dexterous solos like this throughout: an airy flute cuts through the end of the swampy funk opener “Sirens of Jupiter”; the reverse delay guitar on “Mars” achieves a measured psychedelic effect in contrast to the grace of the harp runs.
There are riffs on the album that feel pleasantly misplaced or slyly repurposed, barely recognizable in their new setting. “Sirens of Jupiter” features a tucked away but recurring single-note vibraphone step down that jolts back to Menahan Street Band’s “Tired of Fighting.” Pazner, unsurprisingly, played the instrument on both songs. Later, “Europa and the Bull” opens with a first-generation drum machine ping and sighing guitar twang that evokes Shuggie Otis on Inspiration Information.
The Olympians also sometimes tries to do too much: When “Mars” gives way to “Neptune,” a slowly uplifting number that almost floats away, it sounds like a heart-attack inducing cop chase scene that cuts into a happy-ending montage. The transitions between songs sometimes feel jostled together or even like sequencing mistakes. Still, like good session musicians, the Olympians never sound out of pocket.
Pazner has a fever-dream like backstory for The Olympians that explains the mythical band name and song titles, as if this were soul music for or from the Greek Gods. Perhaps it’s a more compelling narrative than “yet another Daptone instrumental funk album,” but that latter tagline is trustworthy for a reason. The label’s house sound isn’t borne out of try-hard duplication as much as a finely tuned cast; Pazner has exemplified that approach and added some flair with a string section and his own ear. A few years ago the Daptone co-founder and engineer Gabriel Roth fessed up to a studio secret in an interview with the trade publication Sound on Sound. “The sound you want really is coming from the musicians,” he said. “And when guys have played together for a while it's not a strain to get a good sound.” Pazner knows this stay-out-of-the-way tactic well, and the Olympians make their toughest tricks sound effortless because of it.
