Results for "Mike Gurrola"

Mike Gurrola

Born in Redwood City, CA in 1991, bassist Mike Gurrola began his musical journey studying and playing violin in his elementary school orchestra in La Crescenta, California. In his early teenage years an interest in rock and blues guitar led him to learn guitar on his own at home; meanwhile he had switched from violin to bass in his middle school orchestra. Mike's interest in jazz developed because of his desire to attend the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts (LACHSA) where the school day was split equally between academics and the pursuit of the student's art. He auditioned successfully on upright bass and began a fruitful period of rapid development in jazz knowledge and skill, while winning group and individual awards at competitions at the Berklee College of Music and Monterey Jazz Festival annual school competitions, including a scholarship to Berklee's presitigious five-week jazz workshop led by critically acclaimed drummer Terri-Lynne Carrington and a seat two times as bassist in the Monterey Jazz Festival's Next Generation Jazz Orchestra, playing at the North Sea and Monterey Jazz Festivals and at the Kennedy Center

Sextet Session

By Doug MacDonald

Label: Self Produced
Released: 2024
Track listing: Desert Blues; Whispering; Gee’s Flat; You’ve Changed; AT #33; Try Ads; Si Miner; Bubbles in the Wine.

Doug MacDonald: Sextet Session

by Jack Bowers
March 22, 2024

Guitarist Doug MacDonald records albums like someone who is either making up for lost time or does not have much time to spare. According to his discography, Sextet Session is at least the thirty-second album MacDonald has led or co-led, almost half of which have been released in the past couple of years or so. To ...

The Terry Gibbs Songbook

By Gerry Gibbs

Label: Whaling City Sound
Released: 2023
Track listing: Let's Go to Rio; Those Eyes, Those Lips, That Nose, That Face, That Girl; I was Loved; Now's The Time To Groove; The House That Might Have Been; Nina; I can Hardly Wait For Saturday Night; If I Were You; Play and Sing; Lonely Days; And That's Why They Call It The Blues; Say Goodbye; Stay With Me Tonight; If I Knew Then; Sweet Young Song of Love.

Eric Reed Quartet, Pan African People's Arkestra and Pharoah Sanders / Joey DeFrancesco Tribute Band

by Chuck Koton
August 10, 2023

Eric Reed Quartet Sam FirstLos Angeles, CA June 9, 2023 This spring's weather was unseasonably cool, but the jazz scene has been hot in California! In June, master pianist Eric Reed brought his quartet, including tenor saxophonist Ralph Moore, bassist Mike Gurrola and drummer Reggie Quinerly to Sam First, a cozy ...

Terry Gibbs Legacy Band: The Terry Gibbs Songbook

by Jack Bowers
July 30, 2023

Legacy Band? At age ninety-eight, vibraphonist Terry Gibbs--the last remaining member of a legendary group of jazz musicians who defined the big-band era in America and helped expand and sharpen the music's vocabulary--hasn't finished writing his own legacy, which is why this album is subtitled “The Terry Gibbs Songbook." Although best known as ...

May 2022: Music In The Air

by C. Michael Bailey
May 16, 2022

Mark Christian MIller Music In The Air Sliding Jazz Door 2022 Southern California has an embarrassment of jazz vocal riches, of which Mark Christian Miller is a considerable part. A welcome fixture in the Los Angeles area, Miller has released two previous recordings in 2004's Dreamer With A Penney (Sliding Glass ...

John Beasley: Master of All Trades

by Jim Worsley
April 4, 2019

In today's busy world, sometimes you just can't do it all. Apparently, John Beasley never received that memo. The pianist, composer, arranger, producer, music director, and film and TV composer is in high demand, and has an enormity of projects that would seem to belie the twenty-four hour day reality. It is perhaps the variance in ...

Terry Gibbs: 92 Years Young: Jammin' At The Gibbs House

by Jack Bowers
June 5, 2017

"92 Years Young." Sometimes that's an exaggeration. On the other hand, when applied to vibraphonist Terry Gibbs it may well be an understatement. Gibbs was indeed a mere six months shy of his ninety-second birthday when “Jammin' at the Gibbs House" was recorded in his living room in April 2016. Close your eyes, however, and it's ...

Terry Gibbs: 92 Years Young: Jammin' At The Gibbs House

by Dan Bilawsky
June 3, 2017

For a brief moment, put aside the fact that legendary vibraphonist Terry Gibbs is now ninety-two years old. Just listen to the YouTube video at the bottom of this piece--lyrical, swinging, and vibrant as any jazz out there--and take it in. It's something beautiful, right? Nothing radical or groundbreaking at all, but most certainly jazz of ...