Here’s an album that mixes the frenetic brass of Balkan folk music with gypsy jazz guitar a la the Hot Club of France. Guitarist/banjoist/bassist Adrian Raso teams up the wildly exciting brass/horn and drum team of Fanfare Cirocarlia for what…
Author: George W. Harris
HELLO MISTER WILSON!!! Matt Wilson Quartet & John Medeski: Gathering Call, Pete Mills: Sweet Shadow
OK, so that greeting dates me back to the days of the Dennis The Menace TV show. I couldn’t think of any other way to link together these two albums that have multi-dimensional drummer Matt Wilson as the man behind…
Burkhard Mahler: Mahler Movie Music-Entertainment Volume 1
Burkhard Mahler has spent almost 15 years composing music for TV, infomercials and cinema. Here, he puts out his own label and brings together seventeen of his songs from various productions. Some have a pop flavor with vocals, such as…
Adam Smale: Out of the Blue
Here’s a clean sounding guitarist that knows his way around the frets. Adam Smale is in the Herb Ellis/Kenny Burrell line of guitarists, and there ain’t nothing wrong with that. These ten tunes have him in a trio of Phil…
Jon Lundbom & Big Five Chord: Liverevil
Guitarist/composer Jon Lundbom is caught in concert here for two sets leading a rollicking and swinging band at the Brooklyn Fire Proof. The rest of the band consists of a two sax front line of Jon Irabagon and Bryan Murray…
60th Anniversary All Stars@Disney Hall 03.15.14
Like a vintage wine, some things age to perfection, and the pair of 3 score anniversaries from 2 famous concerts celebrated timeless aspects of jazz. The famous Massey Hall concert that cemented the fiundarion of bebop was revisited by having…
Bayete (Todd Cochran): Worlds Around The Sun
This 1973 release is finally getting it’s day in the sun. Today he’s known as Todd Cochran, but back when Nixon was president the pianist went by the name of Bayete’, and put out an album a hip reflection of…
****RINGER OF THE WEEK****Frank Wess: Magic 201
Last year’s Magic 101 by the late Frank Wess was on my Top Ten list of releases for 2013, and the second part of that set, issued here, shows beyond doubt that the testimony of the departed can still speak…
Ben Paterson: Essential Elements
Here’s a pianist with a nice clean touch and a fresh approach to jazz, mixing originals with standards and an adroit selection of Baby Boomer hits. Ben Paterson teams up with Joshua Ramos/b and Jon Deitemyer/dr and show impressive interplay…
OH, YEAH! Bruce Forman: California Swing
LA-based guitarist Bruce Forman divides his time instructing at USC, doing local gigs as a solo artist and leading a Western Swing band called Cow Bop that has a regular gig at Viva Cantina in Burbank. This cd has the…