ONE OF THE MOST DISTINCTIVE GUITAR SOUNDS AND SOLOS IN ALL OF POP MUSIC COME FROM THE GUITAR OF DAVE DAVIES OF THE KINKS. HIS GUITAR WORK ON TWO OF THEIR EARLY HITS “YOU REALLY GOT ME” AND “ALL DAY…
Author: George W. Harris
****RINGER OF THE WEEK****Mavis Pan: Rising
Here’s a fresh musical voice in singer, pianist and composer Mavis Pan. She brings in woodwind masters Ted Nash and Geoff Burke along with Mark Wade/b and Jared Schonig/dr for a Baker’s Dozen of originals that are textured and as…
Sam Phillips: A Boot And A Shoe
Known for her early work with the genre of “Contemporary Christian Music” and then doing some psycho pop work later on, Sam Phillips made a sharp turn on this recently reissued 2004 album. Produced by roots specialist T-Bone Walker, this…
Micah Thomas: Mountains
Pianist Micah Thomas is caught recorded at a gig at NYC’s Jazz Gallery back in June, 2023 with a team of Nicole Grover/ts, Adam O’Farrill/tp, Kanoa Mendenhall/b, Caleb Smith/tb, Kweku Sumbry/dr and Immanuel Wilkins/as. The tunes flow together as in…
Dharma Down: Owl Dreams
The quartet of Duncan Hardy/as-qanun, Mike Effenberger/p, Scott Kiefner/b and John Mettam/dr bring together an album of mostly originals of various moods. Hardy’s traditional string instrument, the zanun, creates an exotic drone on “Jalla Man” and a meditative mood for…
King Llama: Fata Implexis
Modern plugged in fusion sounds ar delivered by the core team of Ryan T. Bailey/g-prog, Luis Briones/dr, Antony Crawford/b and Billy Paulsen/g along with a bus load of guests on an album inspired by the likes of Yes and RTF.…
Michael Pallas: Gateway
Trombonist Michael Pallas teams up with Lomar Brown/as, Yeisson Villamar/p, John Benitez/b, Jonathan Barber/dr and Nelson Matthew Gonzalez/pec for a collection of originals. There’s a nice Latin percolation to the dancing “ Life On Mars” and the soulful “Streaming Hope”…
The Hot Club of San Francisco: Original Gadjo
The team of Paul Mehling/g-banj-voc, Evan Price/vi, Dexter Williams/b-tb, Jordan Samuels-Nelson/g, Cullen Luper/v and Hunter Mathews/g deliver original compositions inspired by Django Reinhardt’s Hot Club with Stephane Grappelli. The swinging is easy on pieces like “Systeme D” and the waltzing…
POPPISH VOCALS…Janis Siegel & Yaron Gershovsky: The Colors Of My Life, Allyson Briggs: Promises, Prayers and Raindrops, Jeff Harnar: The Second Time Around
Jazz voices for the mainstream… Manhattan Transfer vocalist Janis Siegel joins with pianist Yaron Gershovsky and guests including Boris Kozlov-David Finck/b, Cliff Almond/dr and some cameo vocalists and strings for an album of Cy Coleman compositions. A bit of the…
THREESOMES…The Kris Davis Trio: Run The Gauntlet, Andrew Wilcox: Dear Mr. Hill, John Chin-Jeong Lim Yang-Jongkuk Lim: Journey Of Han
Piano trios in action… Kris Davis gives a tribute to influential female pianists on this trio album with Robert Hurst/b and Johnathan Blake, saluting well know ivory ladies like Carla Bley, Geri Allen and Renee Rosnes as well as lesser…