Jazz Articles about Joe La Barbera

About Joe La Barbera

Album Review

Nica Carrington: Times Like These

Read "Times Like These" reviewed by Pierre Giroux

by Pierre Giroux
September 25, 2022

Intrepid may be the best word to use to describe the singer Nica Carrington's self-produced debut album. Not many months before recording it, Nica, who had been taking voice lessons, came across the highly regarded Los Angeles based pianist, arranger, and jazz voice instructor John Proulx, who thought that she showed such promise that he was willing to produce her first release. Wanting to do everything to provide the framework for success, Proulx brought along two esteemed and seasoned jazz ...

Album Review

Bill Evans: Inner Spirit

Read "Inner Spirit" reviewed by Jim Worsley

by Jim Worsley
April 10, 2022

Tension-filled Buenos Aires seemed to bring the best out of Bill Evans. This 1979 live performance at the Teatro General San Martin is as energized as the Argentinian city was polarized. Six years earlier, Evans had played the city in trio with bassist Eddie Gomez and drummer Marty Morell, amidst dangerous political terror. The trio was immune to the chaos and was treated with respect, if not jubilation, at the prospect of hearing them perform. That performance, captured on Morning ...

Interview

Joe La Barbera: Experiencing Bill Evans

by Victor L. Schermer
November 30, 2021

In his own unassuming way, Bill Evans changed the face of jazz piano trio forever. He made the piano a lyrical, expressive voice for the most subtle and deep emotions, and he transformed the rhythm section from a time-beating, swing-maintaining outfit into an intimate, conversational musical unit. He loved tradition. It was just his grasp of the music and the special way that he composed, arranged, and played that influenced his contemporaries and the generations that came after him. He ...

Album Review

Bill Evans: Everybody Still Digs Bill Evans: A Career Retrospective (1956 - 1980)

Read "Everybody Still Digs Bill Evans: A Career Retrospective (1956 - 1980)" reviewed by Chris May

by Chris May
July 20, 2021

Only occasionally do classy looking limited-edition box sets prove to be a triumph of style and substance. Too often they are undermined by cheapskate packaging, over elaborate design, poorly written and researched booklets, inadequate session details or, most egregiously, bizarre (in a bad way) track selections. So it is a more than pleasant surprise when something comes along which succeeds, and succeeds magnificently, on all those fronts. Such an item is Concord Records' Craft imprint's Everybody Still Digs Bill Evans: ...

Album Review

Jeff Ellwood: The Sounds Around The House

Read "The Sounds Around The House" reviewed by Pierre Giroux

by Pierre Giroux
March 8, 2021

As a professional musician hoping to have a meaningful career, hiding one's light under a bushel, may not be the best way to recognizable success. Such might be the case for tenor saxophonist Jeff Ellwood. He may have fallen into the trap evinced by the Dave Frishberg ditty “I Want To Be A Sideman." But as the saying goes; “better late than never" as Ellwood released a self-produced debut, The Sounds Around The House. ...

Album Review

Carl Saunders: Jazz Trumpet

Read "Jazz Trumpet" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
June 8, 2020

Septuagenarian trumpeter Carl Saunders, whose horn served and enhanced the music of Stan Kenton, Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra and numerous other icons, has been a steady presence on the Summit Records imprint. Whether exploring rare Bill Holman charts or crafting a program with a patriotic shine, acting as a featured guest with the Gary Urwin Jazz Orchestra, adding some signature zest to the Phil Norman Tentet's material, or offering up his compositions for an ongoing songbook project with heavy-duty leader-participants ...

Album Review

Cathy Segal-Garcia: The Jazz Chamber

Read "The Jazz Chamber" reviewed by Jerome Wilson

by Jerome Wilson
November 2, 2018

On this album, Cathy Segal-Garcia, a vocalist and educator on the Los Angeles jazz scene, comes up with something special, working with a chamber orchestra and a group of jazz musicians to produce a wide-ranging program that veers from lush romanticism to complex jazz-funk. On much of the disc, Segal-Garcia's thick, classically formal voice, combined with a full string section, presents a lilting hybrid of jazz and light classical music. On first hearing it sounds a bit too ...