Alex Nauman once told me that “Surfer Girl” by the Beach Boys was his favorite song, and it doesn’t take long into his newest record, “Meadowlark,” to hear that the ghosts of the Wilson brothers (and Mike Love, I guess) loom large in the Billings guitarist’s mind.

“Meadowlark” is surf jazz for sophisticates, full of snappy guitar and bouncy rhythms paired with lightning fast improvisation and a soul deep groove. It’s like if the Ventures took a couple melatonin gummies and decided to just get real, real into it.

The record is the sophomore release from the Alex Nauman Trio, comprised of Nauman on guitar Colorado-based musicians Matt Smiley on bass and Dru Heller on drums. It came out Friday everywhere (including a beautiful LP release and on CD, which is now somehow more antiquated than

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