Fans of the guitar and a fretful feast at the Valley Performing Arts Center at CSUN. Three diverse artists ranging from the classical Sharon Isbin to the string tapping jazzer Stanley Jordan with Brazilian Romero Lubambo rounding out the sounds…
Month: February 2014
Dianne Reeves: Beautiful Life
One of the major voices on the jazz scene, Dianne Reeves takes her husky and tonally perfect delivery into the world of smooth jazz/R&B this time around. She uses the keyboards and programming of Robert Glaspar with Terri Lyne Carrington…
A FORGOTTEN BE-BOPPER…Howard McGhee: Nobody Knows When You’re Down & Out/House Warmin’!
You may not have ever heard of Howard McGhee, but at one time he was one of the top notch bebop trumpeters, up there with Dizzy Gillespie and Fats Navarro. He’s on Charlie Parker’s notorious “Lover Man” date, and actually…
The Jazz Crusaders: At The Lighthouse ‘62
A number of years ago, Mosaic Records put out a multi-disc set of the “Pacific Jazz Studio Sessions” of the prototypical jazz/soul group The Crusaders. I remember my frustration back then when I realized they left out the cooking “At…
Brad Mehldau/Mark Guiliana: Mehliana-Taming the Dragon
Well, I guess it was just a matter of time. Pianist Denny Zeitlin just got the electric piano and keyboards out of his system, so now we’ve got the most influential modern guy these days, Brad Mehldau, and he’s gone…
Rob Derke & The NYJAZZ Quartet: Blue Divide
Soprano saxist and composer Rob Derke leads a free flowing quartet with Aruan Ortiz/p, Carlo De Rosa/b and Eric McPherson through some loose yet cogent post modern material. He’s got a warm and rich carmel-sounding horn, and go either angular…
Tony Bennett: The Classics
Here’s a two cd set that takes the bel canto Mr. Bennett at two complete bookends of his career. Disc one has him pre-“San Francisco” and at the peak of his first apotheosis, while the second cd features him in…
****RINGER OF THE WEEK****The Jeremy Steig Quartet: Flute Fever
Fifty years old and as timeless as the a speech by Winston Churchill, this 1963 (from Columbia Records, no less) session lead by flute player Jeremy Steig has been hiding for decades, and undeservedly so. You probably haven’t heard of…
MINGUS’ DYNASTY?…David Dominique: Ritual
Do you want to know what happened to the sounds and vision of Charles Mingus’ music? It seems to have gotten into the ear of composer and flugabone (a variance of flugelhorn) player David Dominique who leads a thrilling band…
Jeff Saxon: Blujanova
Here’s a guy with a style that used to be ubiquitous, but is now about as rare as double platoon football players. Jeff Saxon plays guitar, bass, piano, organ and also sings along with Chet McCraken/dr, perc, McGregor/key-b-dr, Keith Jones/b-dr…