Jazz Articles

Ron ReitanQuintet: Ms-Sippi Cookin', Volume II

by Dave Nathan
June 1, 2001

This CD is the rest of a live performance of the Don Reitan Quintet at the Chez Joey in Biloxi, MS in 1961. The first part of the session is on Vol. 1. This group of young performers were helping to introduce the style of music being played by Art Blakey Messengers and other progressive jazz groups. There are a few important differences between this volume and the first. The latter had five originals by Reitan, here there is only ...

Don Reitan Quintet: MS-Sippi Cookin'

by Dave Nathan
June 1, 2001

In 1961, Don Reitan was playing at a Biloxi, MS watering hole tongue in cheek named Chez Joey. The owner called in an engineer from New Orleans to record Reitan's quintet in performance. For the next 38 years, the tapes were kept by the drummer of the group, Lee Charlton. They have finally been released but without much fanfare or to do.

For that time and place, Reitan's group had a modern sound emulating Art Blakey Messenger hard bop on ...

Frankye Kelly: The Night Is Young

by Dave Nathan
May 1, 2001

Another member of the large and talented clutch of San Francisco vocalists, Frankye Kelly has released her first album for the Sonoma Jazz Label. A live performance that reveals a debt to Sarah Vaughan that comes through on all the cuts, especially on one of Vaughan's more notable recordings, “Tenderly". Kelly avoids those exaggerated swoops, swirls and jumps between octaves that characterized Vaughan's singing which bordered on an affectation in the Divine One's later years. Kelly has her own style ...