Who's Your New Professor

Forget what Carlos Santana, Thurston Moore, and all those bobbing stoners at a Medeski, Martin & Wood show might say: jazz and rock are no easy fit. Which makes Sam Prekop’s second album all the more impressive. The frontman for the Chicago post-rock outfit The Sea & Cake doesn’t attempt a wholesale merger between the two genres, but instead uses jazz techniques to play what are essentially pop songs. As boring as that sounds on paper, on record it’s actually pretty cool. Prekop’s breathy voice settles over a warm guitar melody and high-hat-heavy percussion on “Something,” while a cornet and organ add color. With its wah-wah guitar and deliberate groove, “Little Bridges” is like the Superfly theme if Superfly was the IT guy at a consulting company. “Dot Eye” feels like a Neil Young jam, only cleaner: the guitar snarls in fits, but never kicks up the sort of distortion that puts the crazy in Crazy Horse. At times, it all feels too polite, but for Prekop, jazz isn’t just some excuse to make noise.