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Jim Self: My America 3/My Country
by Jack Bowers
Tuba maestro Jim Self, who always has a creative trick or two up his ample sleeve, has subtitled the third volume of My America, his recorded tribute to the land of the free and the home of the brave, My Country, to which he could have added the word “music," as this is an album of country and western songs splendidly arranged for a fourteen-member jazz group by Kim Scharnberg. This is by and large bright and ...
Continue ReadingThe Jim Self-John Chiodini Duo: Feels So Good
by Jack Bowers
Tuba maestro Jim Self and gregarious guitarist John Chiodini unite for the fifth time on Feels So Good, a studio date whose title neatly encapsulates its upbeat vibe. Even though it seems at first blush that the tuba and guitar should be playing in different leagues, Self and Chiodini somehow make the odd mixture work. Self usually carries the melodic weight while Chiodini offers counterpoint and rhythmic support. The duo performs on eight of the session's thirteen numbers and is ...
Continue ReadingGeoff Stradling: Nimble Digits
by Jack Bowers
Remember the good old days when bandleaders would give a downbeat and their bands would start swinging and keep on doing so until their audiences literally begged for more? Welcome to the past--present tense--courtesy of pianist Geoff Stradling's superb Los Angeles-based StradBand, which swings heartily and with seldom a pause on its radiant and power-laden introductory album, Nimble Digits. Yes, the album does swing--more than thirty of the L.A. area's most accomplished musicians make sure of that--but ...
Continue ReadingJim Self: My America 2: Destinations
by Jack Bowers
Tuba maestro Jim Self's My America 2: Destinations is a successor of sorts to the album My America, recorded and released some twenty years before, also on Self's Basset Hound label. While personnel has inevitably changed (only trombonist Bill Booth returns from that earlier album), Self has employed the services of the same arranger, Kim Scharnberg—and thank goodness for that! Although Self and his eleven-member supporting cast acquit themselves well, it is Scharnberg's ingenious charts that make this engine run. ...
Continue ReadingDavid Angel: Out on the Coast
by Jack Bowers
David Angel, one of the West Coast's best-kept secrets, earns a long-overdue hour or three in the sun and makes every moment count on Out on the Coast, a superlative three-disc anthology that bundles fifteen of his luminous original compositions with seven jazz standards in an invariably pleasurable and charming package. When not teaching, writing or arranging, at home or abroad, Angel has led a Los Angeles-based rehearsal band for more than half a century. A list of alumni reads ...
Continue ReadingDavid Angel Jazz Ensemble: Out on the Coast
by Troy Dostert
Every now and then one runs across musicians or composers who are well-known by their peers, or who have carved out loyal followings regionally, but who at the same time have for whatever reason escaped the notice of the wider jazz community. Los Angeles-based saxophonist/bandleader David Angel would certainly fall into that category, despite a career going back to the 1970s, not only in jazz but in film, television and studio work, in addition to his regular participation in various ...
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