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Bill Cunliffe: Tomo
by Germein Linares
Tomo is the second album on Torri honoring composer Reed Kotler, following last year's release of It's About Love by pianist/arranger Bill Cunliffe. Though little known outside San Francisco, Kotler is a modern composer who seems to have struck an appreciative chord with the Los Angeles-based Cunliffe.As with It's About Love, the music on Tomo is gentle and relaxing. Offering a handsome set of twelve tunes, the group of saxophonist Bob Sheppard, guitarist Larry Koonse, pianist Bill Cunliffe, ...
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by Dan McClenaghan
Pianist Bill Cunliffe, winner of the 1989 Thelonious Monk International Jazz Competition, seems to be making something of a career out of recording Reed Kotler tunes. He did that with Bobby Shew, Gary Foster and Friends Play the Music of Reed Kotler in 2002; Bill Cunliffe and Gary Foster: It's About Love: The Music of Reed Kotler in 2003; and now he offers up Tomo: The Music of Reed Kotler. Five musicians are named on the disc's cover, ...
Continue ReadingBill Cunliffe: Tomo
by Michael P. Gladstone
It's always a pleasure to hear a release from the Torii catalogue. The five musicians presented here often play together in each other's company and also appear on other Torii albums, including 2002's Bobby Shew, Gary Foster and Friends Play the Music of Reed Kotler, and two albums from the next year, It's About Love: The Music of Reed Kotler and Bill Cunliffe's How My Heart Sings: The Music of Earl Zindars.“Tomo" is a Japanese word for friend ...
Continue ReadingBill Cunliffe/Gary Foster: It's About Love
by Dan McClenaghan
The genius of this teaming of pianist Bill Cunliffe and saxophonist Gary Foster on It's About Love is their ability to play jazz that evokes images of dapper men decked out in gleaming tuxedos, elegant bejewled ladies draped in sparkling evening gowns, all sipping from long-stemmed glasses of bubbly champagne. Classy sounding stuff. And Bill Cunliffe is on a roll. Last year's How My Heart Sings (Torii Records), a sextet recording featuring the songs of the overlooked tunesmith Earl Zindars, ...
Continue ReadingA Fireside Chat With Bill Cunliffe
by AAJ Staff
There is a tendency to be indifferent to the familiar -an absence of appreciation with an assumption of the routine. But there is a wisdom in nothing lasts forever. So perhaps, it would behoove us to be grateful that we have musicians locally like Bill Cunliffe (unedited and in his own words), who too yearns for a renewed sense of community. With harmonic and lyrical sensibilities rivaling certified headliners in celebrated New York, Cunliffe has certainly honored Los Angeles with ...
Continue ReadingBill Cunliffe Latin Jazz Nonet
by Craig Jolley
Bill Cunliffe Latin Jazz Nonet Spazio Sherman Oaks, CA February 16, 2004 As with his other projects Bill Cunliffe's new band runs in an intelligent, fresh direction. An outgrowth of his straight-ahead sextet, the key to this band (besides the extra percussion) is the double trombones with the fuller, darker sound available. At times Cunliffe summons up a “Moorish" flavor ("Sketches of Spain"), but more often he gets a little big band ...
Continue ReadingBill Cunliffe/Gary Foster: It's About Love
by Michael P. Gladstone
This album is a second volume presenting the music of composer Reed Kotler, following Bobby Shew-Gary Foster and Friends Play the Music of Reed Kotler (2002). It's About Love resumes with 13 songs as played by Gary Foster, Bill Cunliffe, Jeff D'Angelo and Tim Pleasant. Foster is one of Los Angeles' best kept secrets. I've heard him over the past 25 years on many Concord records and on smaller labels but rarely leading his own group. Cunliffe has been receiving ...
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