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Bob Merrill: Tell Me Your Troubles – Songs by Joe Bushkin, Volume 1
by C. Michael Bailey
There are several arcs of history and experience intersecting on Bob Merrill's Tell Me Your Troubles--Songs by Joe Bushkin, Volume 1. The first is that of Joe Bushkin (1961--2004). Bushkin was a swing era pianist and composer best known for his association with trumpeter Bunny Berigan's band, guitarist Eddie Condon, Max Kaminsky, Joe Marsala, and Muggsy Spanier before World War II and Louis Armstrong, Bud Freeman, and Benny Goodman after the war. His style of composing, as evidenced on his ...
Continue ReadingBob Merrill: Cheerin’ Up the Universe
by C. Michael Bailey
Jazz as an art form is not noted for a particularly sunny disposition. Trumpeter and vocalist Bob Merrill dispenses with this prejudice in his opening original title composition of Cheerin' Up the Universe, his fourth recording. From the outset, this recital is going to be a positive, affirming musical experience sans the saccharine sentimentality projects like this often can fall into. The musicianship and imagination here are much too sharp to allow that to happen. The New ...
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