Bassist Kelly McCarty leads a tenor sax trio with John A. Diaz-Cortes/ts and A.J. Hall/dr through a collection of well thought out originals. Usually, a tenor-bass-drum trio can be a foreboding concept, as many a team has fallen into the…
Author: George W. Harris
Uptown Vocal Jazz Ensemble: Hustlin’ for a Gig
Consisting of Ginny Carr, Robert McBride, Andre Enceneat and Holly Shockey, the Uptown Vocal Jazz Ensemble comes off as a poor man’s Manhattan Transfer, which is not a bad idea, actually. Fronting a swinging ensemble that includes horns and rhythm,…
Anat Cohen: Claroscuro
Anat Cohen is one of my absolute favorite clarinet players, as well as being in the top 10 tenors around. Most of her releases are filled with exciting moments of swing with a mixture of rhythms from various parts of…
Mauricio Pessoa: Habitat
Here’s a gentle and unassuming release of Brazilian music by guitarist/vocalist Mauricio Pessoa. His soto voice is delicate and warm as he sings with a simpatico band that ranges from just a piano and bass (“Prisma”) to larger ensembles that…
Diana Krall: Glad Rag Doll
You’ve really got to admire Diana Krall. She could easily rest on her laurels and spend the rest of her life filling theatres and selling discs doing standards. Instead, she takes artistic changes like her album of originals a few…
SWR Big Band/Dresden Philharmonic: Live Rhapsody in Swing: Ellington/Gershwin/Nestico
My uncle George used to tell me when I was a kid that there would come a day when jazz would become like classical music: musicians doing formal interpretations of what once was improvisation. Is that a good or bad…
Staff Benda Bilili: Bouger le Monde
If you don’t know the story, this African band is comprised of street musicians from Kinshasa, Zaire (now called the Democratic Republic of the Congo) who have been disabled with various forms of paraplegia. Inspiring as that is, and it’s…
Preservation Jazz Hall Band: St. Peter & 57th St
There’s a bumper sticker that mocks Republicans with the question “What are Conservatives trying to conserve?” . Well, you could ask the same question here, and it kind of answers the sticker as well. What the PHJB is trying to…
FRED HERSCH ALIVE AND DRIVING FORWARD
Pianist Fred Hersch is one of the few modern artists who has what every musician craves: his own identifiable sound. He’s used it on a plethora of various sessions lately. His recent Vanguard concert recordings is only the most recent,…
Chris Hillman & The Desert Rose Band@Scherr Theatre 11.03.12
At a packed theatre for a fund raiser to build the Greek Orthodox church that he’s a member of, Rock Hall of Famer Chris Hillman brought his acoustically adroit Desert Rose Band to Thousand Oaks and presented music ranging from…