Sounds that touch your inner soul are delivered from a pair of 70s recordings. Teamed with Benny Turner (Freddie King’s Brother) on bass, Willie Hayes/dr, Tommy Giblin/org,and Lafayette Leake/p, blues groover “Mighty” Joe Young sings like a caged bear and…
Month: August 2017
Hal Galper & The Youngbloods: Live at the Cota Jazz Festival
Jazz vet pianist Hal Galper has had an impressive career as a sideman for the likes of Chet Baker, Stan Getz and Cannonball Adderley, never quite receiving the accolades he deserves. He shows his long hewn charms with a post…
Mads Vinding 4tet: Standards
Bassist Mads Vinding teams up with Carsten Dahl/p, Niclas Campagnol/dr and vocalist Margret Grarup for a concerts of standards. Grarup’s voice is slinky with a delightful vibrato on pieces such as “Love For Sale” and is harrowing when accompanied only…
SOLO PIANO..Dick Hyman: Solo at the Sacramento Jazz Festivals 1983-1988, Jim Turner: Magic Fingers-A Tribute to Johnny Guarnieri
The marrow of jazz, the solo piano in stride form, is presented here in two wonderful displays of the art. The legendary Dick Hyman was a mainstay at the Sacramento Jazz Festival, and is captured here in various shows and…
Pat LaBarbera/Kirk MacDonald Quartet: Silent Voices
Pat LaBarbera and Kirk MacDonald mix and match their tenor and soprano saxes in an open sounding pianoless quartet with Kieran Overs/b and Adam Nussbaum/dr. Both reed players have strong tones on the tenor, and mix an ability to swing…
VOCAL RANGES…Barbara Morrison: I Wanna Be Loved, Gabrielle Stravelli: Dream Ago, Kellye Gray: Rendering
Singers with moods… Jazz vet Barbara Morrison is in vintage form on this album with LA cats Stuart Elster/p, Richard Simon/b and Lee Spath along with tenor titan Houston Person for a collection of hip standards. She puts extra swing…
#Bloomerangs: Horizon Sunset
The collective group #Bloomerangs mixes 22 artists from places as diverse as the US, Uruguay and Argentina, in order to create a global view of jazz for the new millennium. Most consistent in the rotating batting order are drummer Tato …
John Stein & Dave Zinno: Wood and Strings
Sublime duets like the one presented here by guitarist John Stein and bassist Dave Zinno make are one of the simple pleasures of life. These two gents take standards, originals and obscurities and turn them into gently swinging conversations. Stein’s…
Ben Williams Presents “The Writers’ Block”@The Blue Whale 08.02.17
Bassist Ben Williams joked that his concept of “Writers’ Block” didn’t come from the inability to create new music. Far from it, said Pat Metheny’s bassist. “Think of this more like a Block Party for writers,” he explained, as almost…
****RINGER OF THE WEEK****Calabria Foti: In the Still of the Night
It’s been about 10 years since vocalist Calabria Foti has released an album, the seductively Julie London-inspired A Lovely Way to Spend an Evening. After listening to this one, all I’ve got to say is “WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?!?” Instead…