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Cannonball Adderly: Burnin’ in Bordeaux: Live in France 1969
by Mike Jurkovic
Intent on burning down the house, Burnin' in Bordeaux: Live in France 1969 finds Cannonball Adderley gleefully passing out the matches. Captured very, very, very live at the Bordeaux Jazz Festival in March 1969, Adderley and his fired up co-arsonists--pianist Joe Zawinul, cornetist Nat Adderley, Jr., bassist Victor Gaskin, and drummer Roy McCurdy--go scorched earth from the flare-up with Zawinul's spiky ember, the uber-toned “The Scavenger." It rips, it roars. It runs wild the rapids and holds strong the ramparts. It ...
read moreRay Vega & Thomas Marriott East West Trumpet Summit: Coast to Coast
by Jack Bowers
Coast to Coast is the third East West Trumpet Summit recorded by Ray Vega and Thomas Marriott in a musical partnership that has spanned nearly three decades. The years have been kind, and when it comes to playing persuasive jazz, neither Vega nor Marriott appears to have lost a step. Marriott, a native of Seattle, and Vega, New York-born and bred, first met in 1995, and the mutual admiration and respect was immediate. Their first two albums as co-leaders were ...
read moreRay Vega & Thomas Marriott East West Trumpet Summit: Coast to Coast
by Paul Rauch
For some people, the whole notion of an east-west summit of anything in jazz brings up the perceived differences over time between American west coast jazz and its east coast counterpart. The basic premise is that jazz on the American west coast is a cousin to the cool jazz movement, a calmer, less soulful part of the tradition that relies more on composition and arrangement than the playing of individual improvisers. East coast jazz is seen more as hard driving, ...
read moreDoug MacDonald: Overtones
by Jack Bowers
The term “all-star" is not one to be used lightly. Be that as it may, the appellation fits guitarist Doug MacDonald's Los Angeles-based octet as snugly as a glove; he and his colleagues are among the finest, most experienced and in-demand musicians on the West Coast. On Overtones, recorded in September 2021, the ensemble shows its mastery by gracefully skating through seven of MacDonald's upbeat themes and one standard, Ram Ramirez' ardent “Lover Man." Three of MacDonald's ...
read moreDoug MacDonald: Overtones
by Richard J Salvucci
Some of you may well remember Arthur Conley's 1967 chart-topper, “Sweet Soul Music." The lyrics began with the imperishable line, “Do you like good music?" That may resonate with listeners of a certain age, because Overtones: Doug MacDonald and the L.A. All Star Octet certainly qualifies as “good music." What is it about West Coast stuff inflected with Birth of the Cool? It somehow never gets old, even when a listener thinks, “Hmm. There may not be anything new here, ...
read moreDoug MacDonald: Overtones
by Edward Blanco
Los Angeles-based guitarist Doug MacDonald just happens to be one of the most active recording musicians in the country, with three releases in 2021 alone and at least two more dating back to 2019. Add to that list, this 2022 recording of Overtones and you can understand MacDonald's devotion to producing music as evidenced by his large discography. A prolific composer, MacDonald's eight-track repertoire consist almost entirely of original compositions, with the only exception being a fine rendition of Ram ...
read moreDoug MacDonald and the L.A. All-Star Octet: Overtones
by Jack Bowers
Doug MacDonald's mind is as active as his fingers. The Los Angeles-based guitarist divides his time between writing and playing, and he writes as well as he plays, which is impeccably. Overtones, on which he leads an All-Star Octet (we checked, and all-star is precisely the proper term), is MacDonald's fourth album in the last year or so and twentieth-plus over-all. As is generally the case, most of the songs are his (seven of eight), and they are consistently bright ...
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