Groove Holmes Swings with Saunders in 1975
Saunders' guitar cuts through the organ with a sharp, soulful edge that keeps things grounded and human.
What makes Onsaya Joy (1975) stick is Orville Saunders on guitar. He doesn't play second fiddle to Richard "Groove" Holmes' organ—he pushes back, challenges it, keeps the whole thing from floating into pure soul-jazz comfort food. Saunders has a tone that's both lean and muscular, the kind of playing that sounds like it could strip paint, and he uses it to anchor what could've been a loose, meandering live session into something with real shape.
Groove Holmes was already a fixture in the organ-combo world by 1974, and he's doing here what he did best—rolling those drawbars with blues sensibility and church feeling. But without Saunders' guitar cutting through, this could've been just another organ date. Instead, there's friction, conversation. Thomas Washington, Jr. on drums keeps things moving briskly underneath, never overwhelming, but Saunders is the real counterweight. His solos are short and purposeful, not showboating, and they reset the energy every time Holmes starts settling into a groove.
This is a solid organ-combo live recording from the Flying Dutchman label, recorded in 1974 and captured the way those sessions usually were—immediate, unpretentious, designed for people who wanted their jazz with swing and soul rather than decoration. Not a masterpiece, but a good example of what organ combos could do when the players actually listened to each other.
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