The blues come in various shades. Here are a couple of albums that display the wide and rich palate. Sultry voiced Samantha Martin hits hard with her ten team band that includes a STAXY horn section. Steve Marriner’s B3 hums…
Month: July 2018
Shamie Royston: Beautiful Liar
Shamie Royston plays wondrous piano this strong and soulful collection of originals plus one. She teams with a hard bopping band of Josh Evans/tp, Jaleel Shaw/as-ss, Yasushi Nakamura/b and hubby Rudy Royston/dr with some snappy pulses for the horns on…
Hamid Cooper: Digital Reign, King James 23
So Cal based percussionist Hamid Cooper has released a pair of sleek rhythmic albums. Digital Reign mixes some Middle Eastern moods with synthesized percussion as well as some thick R&Bish bass licks. A bit of balalaika adds exotic flavors as…
Albert Lee@Bogie’s Bar 07.08.18
Yes, there are guitar player with more fiendish chops and can do wilder electronic wizardry with the pedals to make sounds that hit the ozone layer. But, as he displayed with his band at Bogie’s on Sunday night, the reason…
WEST COAST SWING FROM THE EISENHOWER YEARS…Sam Trippe & Bob Rogers: Explosion! & All This and That Too, Bill Hitz & Greig McRitchie: Music for This Swingin’ Age, Easy Jazz on a Fish Beat Bass
Back in the days of You Bet Your Life, Leave it to Beaver, Dennis the Menace and Father Knows Best, the tv studios were brimming with musicians from the swing era that moved out to the West Coast for some…
****RINGER OF THE WEEK****WoodWired: In the Loop
All you have here are two ladies, Cheyenne Cruz on bass clarinet and Hannah Leffler on flute. But what they produce with their talent capital is quite impressive. They share the writing skills while using voice and hand percussion to…
Salvo Losappio: Long Story Short
Tenor saxist Salvo Losappio drinks deeply from Lester Young’s well on this satisfyingly swinging album of standards with a couple of self penned tunes. Sosaapio’s tone is warm and supple, naturally bopping to the hip take of “Shaw Nuff” while…
Zoo Berries: EP1
Consisting of Ayal Tsubery/eb, Peter Kronrief/dr, Nadav Peled/g, Hailey Nisewanger/ss and Daniel Meron/p-key, Zoo Berries specializes in creating reflective moods with a soulful current. This ep includes originals that keep it mellow and still spare some time for swinging creativity.…
BRAZILIAN SUNSETS….Daniel Santiago & Pedro Martins: Simbiose
Blending voices and guitars, Daniel Santiago/acoustic joins with Pedro Martins/electric for 9 gorgeous pieces that create a Raphaelesque tapestry of sounds. Gentle folksy pieces like the dreamy and soft “Retrato” and pastoral “Refletindo” combine subliminal and cirrus cloud voices to…
Ilkka Rantamaki: Letters From Dark Country
Finnish guitarist Ilkka Rantamaki mixes a wide variety of styles on this ambitious album, ranging from gentle and pastoral folk to hard hitting blues rock. He teams up with Will Vinson/as, Manuel Dunkel/ss, Gary Versace/key-p, Matt Penman-Orlando le Fleming-Danton Boller/b,…