Jazz Articles about Los Angeles Jazz Quartet

Los Angeles Jazz Quartet: Live at Jazz nad Odra

by Jim Worsley
August 21, 2020

In honor of their twenty-fifth anniversary, Los Angeles Jazz Quartet took the stage in Wroclaw, Poland to perform at the Jazz at Odra Festival. This recording is documentation that they know how to celebrate in style. Five originals and two reimagined classics were powerfully and charismatically presented to an attentive and appreciative audience by bassist Darek Oleszkiewicz, drummer Jason Harnell, saxophonist Chuck Manning and guitarist Larry Koonse. Manning came out of the gate pulsating and swinging to the ...

Los Angeles Jazz Quartet: Family Song

by Jim Santella
June 1, 1999

The Los Angeles Jazz Quartet performs original compositions that relate their 3rd album to family and close friends. As with most of modern mainstream acoustic jazz, the compositions are used as a basis from which the artists improvise. That they’ve been together for six years is evident from the manner in which each artist supports the others. Guitarist Larry Koonse lays down fluid lines that serve as a foundation for the unit’s harmony. His improvisations are equally fluid, but with ...

Los Angeles Jazz Quartet: Look To The East

by C. Michael Bailey
July 1, 1998

Pianoless Quartet. The Los Angeles Jazz Quartet is a guitar trio plus reeds, consisting of Larry Koonse on guitar, Chuck Manning on tenor and soprano saxophones, and Darek Oleszkiewicz on bass, and Kevin Tullius on drums. They play a straight-ahead brand of jazz that is very accessible and mainstream. Of the 10 recent Naxos Jazz releases, this is the most readily absorbable.

Bright and Sparkling. This disc, as with all of the other Naxos Jazz releases, is impeccably recorded. The ...