Jazz Articles about Benny Russell

About Benny Russell

Liner Notes

On his second outing as a leader, bassist-composer Phil Ravita recruited a close-knit crew of musicians that he's worked with in the Mid-Atlantic region since their time together in grad school at the University of Maryland, College Park. “We've known each other since 2007," he said of bandmates Greg Small on piano and Nucleo Vega on drums. Since then, they've done gigs in New York City, Washington, D.C. and Baltimore and a myriad of Maryland towns and cities. The group's ...

Album Review

The Grasso-Ravita Jazz Ensemble: Jagged Spaces

Read "Jagged Spaces" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
January 10, 2021

The Baltimore-based Grasso-Ravita Jazz Ensemble is a congenial quintet co-led by guitarist Skip Grasso and bassist Phil Ravita. Its other members are saxophonist Benny Russell, pianist Greg Small and drummer Nuc Vega. Jagged Spaces, the group's debut recording, encompasses nine original compositions: four by Grasso, two each by Ravita and Russell, and one by Small. If earnestness alone could win the day, this ensemble would no doubt emerge victorious. As it is, their diligence and design aren't ...

Album Review

The TNEK Jazz Quintet: Plays the Music of Sam Jones

Read "Plays the Music of Sam Jones" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
May 9, 2020

The late Sam Jones is mainly remembered as an earnest craftsman whose perceptive bass lines undergirded the likes of Cannonball Adderley, Oscar Peterson, Cedar Walton, Barry Harris, Kenny Dorham, Bobby Timmons, Bill Evans and a host of other jazz masters. Jones, however, had another special albeit lesser-known talent, one that is addressed here, almost forty years after his passing in 1981, by the TNEK Jazz Quintet. Jones, as it happens, was a superb writer whose keen ear for a melody ...