Jazz Articles about Bob Sheppard

About Bob Sheppard

Album Review

Young bassist Julian Wittich 紀安's debut album, Tidelines, successfully introduces the musician to the contemporary jazz canon. Based in New York (though a fixture of the Taiwanese live music scene), having Taiwanese and Dutch ancestry, and educated in Amsterdam, Wittich is certainly a citizen of the world. That global outlook informs the diverse, colorful music heard on the album. Confident and assured, Tidelines radiates promise, and certainly elevates expectations for Wittich's output going forward. On Tidelines, Wittich keeps ...

Album Review

Robyn Spangler: Robyn Spangler

Read "Robyn Spangler" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
June 18, 2026

Award-winning vocal stylist, songwriter, and actress Robyn Spangler is a fourth-generation performer whose deep musical roots trace back to an Indiana childhood of circus musicians, military band players, and a mother who sang in big bands. After taking piano lessons from former Steve Miller Band keyboardist Jim Peterman and fronting professional cover bands at age 17, Spangler moved to Los Angeles to study theater and music. She quickly built a diverse bi-coastal career working both behind the scenes and in ...

Album Review

Dave Slonaker Big Band: Shifty Paradigms

Read "Shifty Paradigms" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
February 16, 2026

While Los Angeles-based composer and arranger Dave Slonaker's paradigms may be shifty, his all-star big band is about as forthright as one could wish. On Shifty Paradigms, his third recording fronting the band, Slonaker guides his peerless eighteen-member ensemble through its paces on a dynamic and always-swinging program that encompasses seven of his stellar original compositions and the venerable standard, “Bye Bye Blues." Slonaker's game plan is simple: give the band superior themes and charts on which to ...

Album Review

Josh Nelson / Kevin Van Den Elzen: West Coast Echoes

Read "West Coast Echoes" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
December 3, 2025

Pianist Josh Nelson and drummer Kevin Van Den Elzen (with bassist Eric Sittner) revisit the glory days of West Coast jazz in the 1950s and '60s on West Coast Echoes, a generally smooth and pleasing glance backward at the “cool" school of jazz championed by such legendary artists as Shorty Rogers, Art Pepper, Stan Getz, Shelly Manne, Gerry Mulligan, Bob Cooper, Chet Baker, Chico Hamilton, Bud Shank, Russ Freeman and many others. The “echoes" become louder and more ...

Album Review

Mark Winkler: Hold On

Read "Hold On" reviewed by Pierre Giroux

by Pierre Giroux
September 7, 2025

Throughout his extensive career, Mark Winkler has been a steadfast presence on the Los Angeles jazz scene, earning a reputation as one of the most versatile and captivating vocalists in contemporary jazz. With Hold On, his 22nd album, Winkler continues to demonstrate that artistic growth and creative curiosity remain central to his work. While many artists with such a prolific discography might be tempted to rest on their laurels, Winkler continues to push forward, creating new material and thoughtfully reimagining ...

Album Review

Catina DeLuna & Otmaro Ruíz: Lado B Brazilian Project 2

Read "Lado B Brazilian Project 2" reviewed by Pierre Giroux

by Pierre Giroux
August 26, 2025

Catina DeLuna and Otmaro Ruíz have once again teamed up to explore the rich tapestry of Brazilian music in Lado B Brazilian Project 2. As a follow-up to their earlier exploration of this repertoire, this album sees the duo delve even deeper into Brazil's lyrical and melodic treasures, producing results that are both innovative and rooted in tradition. They have assembled a stellar band to perform Ruíz's arrangements, including two carry-overs from their first edition: guitarist Larry Koonse and bassist ...

Album Review

Catina DeLuna & Otmaro Ruíz: Lado B Brazilian Project 2

Read "Lado B Brazilian Project 2" reviewed by Katchie Cartwright

by Katchie Cartwright
August 17, 2025

In a time of disembodied digital-only releases, luxuriously well-crafted albums like Catina DeLuna and Otmaro Ruiz's Lado B Brazilian Project 2, with physical disk, album notes, lyric translations and evocative graphics, can really be the balm. The project was born in 2015 with the release of Lado B Brazilian Project (Self Produced), which received a Grammy nomination in 2016. The idea was to interpret what we might call Great Brazilian Songbook--classics by Antonio Carlos Jobim, Chico Buarque, Dorival ...