Joe Firstman is a musical journeyman who’s taken an uncommon career path. In the early 2000s, he inked a deal with Atlantic Records and played piano-driven pop music that emphasized the soulful depth of his voice. Then he made an interesting pivot and became a late-night talk show bandleader, fronting the musical ensemble for “Last Call with Carson Daily” for five years in the latter part of the decade. He finally found his groove, though, when he formed Cordovas.
The band, active since 2011, hovers on the fringes of the jam band and Americana scenes. Firstman and company’s songs have a lived-in organic warmth, sounding like they came out of casual jam sessions in Laurel Canyon or Big Pink in another era. “This Town’s a Drag” and “It’s the One Who Needs You Tonight,” from the band’s 2018 album, That Santa Fe Channel, are comfortingly familiar, earnest originals that come across like they were crafted after way too many spins of the Grateful Dead’s American Beauty and the Byrds’ Sweetheart of the Rodeo.
Beyond cosmic country, the group taps into a broad range of vintage rock influences, incorporating the stacked harmonies of The Band, the bluesy guitar extensions of The Allman Brothers Band, and the gritty, R&B-hued shuffles of Little Feat. This kind of pastiche carries the risk of making material feel like tired retreads, but Cordovas’ sincere approach tracks more like vital, link-in-the-chain reverence than bar band mimicry. In “Fallen Angels of Rock ‘n’ Roll,” Firstman’s ode to the soul-saving aspects of music from the 2023 album The Rose of Aces, he unabashedly sings, “I know all the roads from Memphis to Muscle Shoals.”
Like many of its old-school predecessors, Cordovas—which now features Firstman, steadfast lead guitarist Lucca Soria, and a rotating collective of side players—has its own creative hub, a multi-house compound of sorts in Todos Santos, Mexico, where the group invites fellow musicians to woodshed songs and hosts the Tropic of Cancer Music & Arts Festival. It’s where the band workshopped the songs on its latest album, the January-released Back to Life.
The new effort, Cordovas’ first on the venerable independent label Yep Roc Records, features nine tracks in a lean 29 minutes. The group’s signature live-show jamming is largely set aside in favor of efficient, slightly refined songcraft that still mostly revels in traditional styles. Album opener “Higher Every Time” is a sub-three-minute country ramble about romantic euphoria, with edges polished by smooth harmonies and crystalline banjo rolls. A few songs later, Firstman’s voice evokes shades of Townes Van Zandt in “Josephina”—a heartbreak ballad accented by weeping pedal steel.
The album takes more intriguing turns on the back half. “Wings,” in particular, is a pleasant surprise, an airy meditation with minimal stream-of-consciousness lyrics that float among a soft, jazzy beat and saxophone fills from special guest Kamasi Washington. With Cordovas, Firstman has found a comfortable zone, as he continues to wander in search of new sounds.
Cordovas perform at The Southern Café & Music Hall on August 11 with support from Gavin Kattesh.
