Articles by Jim Trageser
Various Artists: Swinging In The Holidays
by Jim Trageser
With a warm, wood-paneled vintage glow, a new Christmas collection inhabits the space formerly reserved for top-flight crooners like Nat King Cole, Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett: blending pop and jazz into comfort food for your ears. While few of the “next-gen" (as the album's publicity tag puts it) performers here will be known to those unfamiliar with the contemporary New York City scene, their chops are undeniable and the arrangements flattering to the performers' strengths.
Continue ReadingDavid Virelles: Igbó Alákọrin (The Singer’s Grove) Vol. III (Director’s Cut)
by Jim Trageser
In 2018, New York-based pianist David Virelles turned more than a few heads when he set aside his avant-garde playing style to dive headfirst into the traditional music of his native Santiago de Cuba. Igbó Alákorin Vol. 1 and II found Virelles fully immersed in the Santiago music community, recording alongside both local legends and young up-and-comers. He has now issued Vol. III in two different editions, a “theatrical cut" (with 18 tracks) and a longer ...
Continue ReadingEnoch Smith Jr.: The Book of Enoch Vol. 1
by Jim Trageser
With a longstanding residence as a music worship leader at Allentown Presbyterian Church in New Jersey, pianist / composer Enoch Smith Jr. comes to jazz with a gospel perspective. Once common in soul music and even blues, this gospel background is rarer in jazz, especially in recent years. On The Book of Enoch, Vol 1, as in his previous outing, The Quest: Live at APC (2016), Smith's performance is in a jazz vein--albeit one with significant ...
Continue ReadingApex Blues tackles legacies of Jimmie Noone and Jimmy Noone Jr.
by Jim Trageser
Apex Blues Cecile J. Picou 232 Pages ISBN: 979-8891552524 Self Published 2024 Quietly published in 2024 with little to no fanfare, Cecile Picou's dual biography of New Orleans' Jimmie Noone and his son, San Diego's Jimmy Noone Jr., offers some wonderful insights to San Diego's jazz, blues and soul scenes of the 1970s, '80s and '90s. For fans of the son--who starred with Jeannie and Jimmy Cheatham's Sweet Baby Blues ...
Continue ReadingDan Siegel at MiraCosta College
by Jim Trageser
Dan Siegel Band MiraCosta College Concert Hall Oceanside, CAOctober 20, 2023 An old maxim of business is to under-promise and over-deliver. By that measure, pianist Dan Siegel's show at the MiraCosta College Concert Hall in Oceanside, Calif., was a massive success. The show was simply billed as The Dan Siegel Band, which barely hinted at the one-off lineup he assembled for the 10-song show on the campus where he's taught for more than ...
Continue ReadingDawg Yawp: So Much More
by Jim Trageser
On a 2004 remix compilation, What Is Hip? (Warner Brothers), Tsuper Tsunami turned Seals & Crofts' early '70s folk-rock classic “Summer Breeze" into a percolating bit of dance-ready electronica. But it does not seem that either Jimmy Seals nor Dash Crofts were involved in the electronica on the new take of their recording. On So Much More, contemporary folk rockers Dawg Yawp go full-on acid mode all on their own, and the results are every bit ...
Continue ReadingEddie "Lockjaw" Davis and Shirley Scott: Cookin’ with Jaws and the Queen: The Legendary Prestige Cookbook Albums
by Jim Trageser
In a sign that the art of the box set continues to evolve, and that history never runs in a straight line, a lavishly produced box set of tenor giant Eddie “Lockjaw" Davis and organist Shirley Scott is being released not only on CD but on high grade vinyl LPs and downloads as well. Compare that to Bing Crosby's 1954 set, which came out on seventeen 45s in an actual box with a locking clasp and key.
Continue ReadingWill Bernard Finds His Own Path To Jazz Career
by Jim Trageser
Guitarist Will Bernard doesn't consider himself a “regular" jazz player. He says this occurred to him when he was being asked to play on some recording sessions in New York. “In New York, I've been doing some recording—I did three records for PosiTone, which is more of a jazz label. They're actually based in L.A., but they record mostly in New York. He was calling me in to do jazz sessions, and I think, 'I'm not ...
Continue ReadingNaama Gheber's Detours Lead Straight To Jazz Career
by Jim Trageser
There is no “normal" journey to becoming an established, professional musician. Every path is different; each story one of a kind. But some are perhaps more different than most. Naama Gheber's surely ranks among those in the “more different" category: not many jazz singers began their adult years by serving as an intelligence analyst in the Israeli air force. Both born and raised in Be'er Sheva, Israel, she fell in love with jazz not ...
Continue ReadingBishu Chattopadhyay: Kolkata Stories
by Jim Trageser
Given this album's title, the fact that the leader's previous album was titled Harlem Meets Hooghly (self-produced, 2020), and even the song titles on this release, it's not unrealistic to be looking for an Indo-jazz fusion release in the vein of John McLaughlin, Warren Senders or simakDialog. But despite the Indian album and song titles, this is a straight-ahead post-bop album, closer to Monty Alexander than McLaughlin. Only in an occasional passage does one hear influences from the ...
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