Style: World beat / Jazz -- Sound: *** Composition: *** Musicianship: *** Performance: **** Total Rating: 13. Led by Andy O’Leary and Gary Hoover with others adding sundry ethnic instruments, this lysergic Denver-based jam band chooses any style that strikes its fancy, sometimes creating its own. The first four songs on Unmistakable Evidence, the band’s third offering, sound like a 4AD label house party, especially This Mortal Coil’s ‘Filigree and Shadow’. Reverb-drenched acoustic guitar with acoustic and electronic percussion clattering in support opens, followed by a slow throbbing riff with almost Middle Eastern-style wordless female vocals and male spoken word. Third up is electronica followed by a piece featuring a fretless bass workout. I thought I had them pegged! Yeah, right. Next, they serve up a mock raga with O’Leary reciting beat poetry, sounding like Tuli Kupferberg leading a new age Fugs. Poetry accompanied by a coffeehouse vibe follows. OK, now I’ve got it. Guess again, pal. Now I’m smack dab in the Middle East with shades of Gong. And so it goes: Get your footing, get the rug yanked out from under you. Whew! Just when you thought you’ve heard it all…

“It’s the bipolar part of town,” Unmistakable Evidence’s urbanely voiced, decidedly trippy narrator/shaman informs us on “Purgatory Avenue,” atop a rolling soundscape of token Sun Ra vamps, as though a queue of beat poets were waiting to come out and do their stuff. Customary jazz fans—that is, anyone who tends to think of jazz in terms of idioms—won’t find much in the way of bop, free, swing or mainstream here, but there is a surplus of lounge jazz, albeit lounge jazz tweaked: elevated, even, to a series of form experiments and enigmas—how to apportion a rock groove, an Ecstasy house beat and Native American rhythmic chants (as on “Kaliwood”) so as to fit the format of what’s essentially a coffeehouse folk diversion. Heady. One never does know when, exactly, the shaman will pop in to deliver his latest sermon, which isn’t as freely associative as you might expect, though occasionally in Spanish and rendered with what we might call lysergic energy. Or maybe just a touch of laudanum. But it’s all a send-up, a bit like Bela Lugosi booming away as a mad sage in an Ed Wood film, and sometimes hypnotic—the brass on “Requiem (For Ed Martinez)” commits to a weird, desert barcarolle, an eventually welcome intrusion on, and enhancement of, the wailing, slightly muffled female canting, as though heard from outside a densely packed adobe. A dozen performers account for the “troupe,” since, naturally, labels like “band” and “group” won’t do, and merry minstrels tend to think in terms of collectives and warm, hopeful reassurances. Hence, paeans to overlooked matters, like fossils: “I could do some trilobite poetry.” Of course you could.

Not sure what to call Unmistable Evidence from Denver, Colorado's Coyote Poets of the Universe, a varied and at times odd amalgam of jazz, ambient, electronic, prog rock, and ethnic Native American elements. It the end, the classification is ultimately not really needed, as the end result is a pretty interesting listening experience. The band is comprised of many players who contribute guitar, kalimba, percussion, harp, koto, dumbek, recorder, bass, violin, fiddle, keyboards, and flute, but led by Denver radio show hosts Andy O'Leary (vocals, guitars, bass, keyboards, percussion) and Gary Hoover (vocals, guitars, keyboards, percussion, programming). Basically a mix of jazzy and ethereal ethnic music and poetry, Unmistakable Evidence is a gentle and calming listen that takes you through many aural scenes and landscapes, like the lush fusion of "Nebraska", the Native American settings of "Sitting in the Dark", and the eerie "Purgatory Avenue". Fans of spoken word poetry over minimalist musical arrangements will probably love the few tracks that feature the poems of O'Leary, as his voice has somewhat of an intoxicating effect that kind of lulls you in while the ambient & jazz passages take hold of you. While there's nothing here on Unmistakable Evidence that's going to bowl you over and give you that "wow" effect, there are plenty of tasty bits (the fusiony bass playing is especially nice throughout) and lush passages that should appeal to fans of jazz, ambient, lite prog rock, and spoken word poetry.

Coyote Poets Of The Universe is a group from Denver that combines music and poetry in the tradition of Ken Nordine's "word jazz". Formed by musician Gary Hoover and poet/radio producer Andy O'Leary to make pieces for his show "JazzTales", the group has grown into a twelve person collaboration that has now recorded three CDs. Their musical vibe is loose and atmospheric, with nice fretless bass, world percussion and world-influenced backing vocals. O'Leary's spoken voice is deep like an ad man's and like Nordine he plays with both profundities and funny cultural references in the same piece. Now and then the mellow vibe is broken by quirky synths and the kind of voice sampling that Negativland does (the ufo-themed title piece "Unmistakable Evidence"), but if your bag is something eclectic and hip (as in OE50's beat territory) then check out their website or myspace page.