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Paul Kuhn: The LA Session
by Richard J Salvucci
Paul Kuhn (1928-2013) was a German jazz pianist who was well known in his own country, but much less so in the United States. All things considered, given that he spent the formative year of his adolescence in Nazi Germany, he was probably lucky to have survived at all. The Nazis, like most authoritarians, frowned on swing and jazz. They considered it the product of a degraded race and gateway drug of sorts to all sorts of perversions of which ...
read moreJack Jones Featuring Joey DeFrancesco: ArtWork
by Nicholas F. Mondello
"Those who know, know" happens to be a soon-to-be-overused phrase to describe the hip, the “In," and “the very elite of aware." Now in his Mid-80s, Jack Jones has maintained a stellar, cross-media career, all on a foundation of a once-in-a-lifetime voice. Mel Torme, one not easily prone to hyperbole, called Jones, “the best pure singer in the business." Torme and others in the Vocal Pantheon knew. With ArtWork, Jones joins forces with the late multi-instrumentalist and ...
read moreJack Jones Featuring Joey DeFrancesco: ArtWork
by Jack Bowers
If a singer's reputation is so impressive that he or she is able to enlist a full orchestra (with bassist John Clayton conducting) and the late organ maestro Joey DeFrancesco as featured soloist, that is certainly enough to warrant attention. The singer in this instance is two-time Grammy winner Jack Jones, the orchestra an assemblage of some of the Los Angeles area's finest musicians, enlarged by a thirty-member string section. On one hand, Jones remains a smooth ...
read moreRoberta Gambarini: Easy To Love
by Richard J Salvucci
In 2007, All About Jazz reviewer Michael Caratti wrote: “This debut outing from Roberta Gambarini sees the Italian-born jazz vocalist pair up with two star-studded rhythm sections and legendary tenor saxophonist James Moody, to present what has to be one of the best vocal jazz albums of the decade. Opening with Cole Porter's classic title track Gambarini's exquisite tone and masterful rhythmic phrasing are immediately on display in the first a capella section. The gradual addition of bass and brushes ...
read moreThe Optimal Evolution of Amersfoort World Jazz
by Phillip Woolever
A multitude of festivals recently returned from the pandemic wasteland as the world of live music played catch-up from over two years of interruptions, but few comebacks in the busy summer of 2022 were as uniformly strong as the full reopening of the Amersfoort World Jazz Festival. During what is likely now a permanent switch from the previous spring time frame to an early August edition, Amersfoort elevated its status as a multi-venue concert program, showcase-type exhibition series, and marketing ...
read moreDoug MacDonald: I'll See You in My Dreams
by Jack Bowers
There is at least one constant in guitarist Doug MacDonald's long and rewarding career: he likes to stay busy, whether hosting live gigs or inhabiting a recording studio. MacDonald's latest quartet session, I'll See You in My Dreams, is at least his twenty- ninth as leader of groups of various sizes and shapes. It is also a homecoming of sorts, as MacDonald is reunited here with the co-leaders of one of his earlier employers, the Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra, namely bassist ...
read moreCraig Davis: Tone Paintings
by Jack Bowers
The subtitle of pianist Craig Davis' second album, Tone Paintings, is “The Music of Dodo Marmarosa." For those who may be inclined to ask, “Dodo who?" the album offers a mini-biography of Pittsburgh-born Michael (Dodo) Marmarosa, an exceptionally talented pianist whose promising early career was cut short by the crushing weight of mental and emotional problems that proved too unbearable for him to overcome. At his peak, in the decade from 1940-50, Marmarosa was a member of big bands led ...
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