Jazz Articles about Ricky Alexander

About Ricky Alexander

Album Review

Although the ten songs performed by cornetist Mike Davis' Brooklyn-based septet, The New Wonders, on the group's second album, Steppin' Out, are well removed from new, most have stood the test of time and remained popular with a small yet devoted number of trad jazz enthusiasts, some for a century or more. The New Wonders carry forward a storied tradition that dates at least as far back as the Original Dixieland Jazz Band in the early 1920s and whose best-known ...

Album Review

Sweet Megg: Bluer Than Blue

Read "Bluer Than Blue" reviewed by Nicholas F. Mondello

by Nicholas F. Mondello
July 22, 2024

One of the more niche genres in the history of jazz is western swing. Primarily dance music and hugely popular in the Southwest, it originated as a jambalaya blending hot jazz, country, blues, pop and traditional fiddle playing, performed by combos such as the Light Crust Doughboys and Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys. It incorporated instrumentation including violins, steel and electric guitars with other instruments. The music was a precursor of rockabilly. Bluer Than Blue superbly resurrects that energetic ...

Album Review

Ricky Alexander: Just Found Joy

Read "Just Found Joy" reviewed by Nicholas F. Mondello

by Nicholas F. Mondello
June 18, 2024

The odd picture on the cover of Ricky Alexander's Just Found Joy is neither a takeaway from The Beach Boys' Pet Sounds (Capitol, 1966) album cover, nor a play on the GOAT acronym. Actually, the album art was photographed at the Store Barns Farm in Downstate New York. This is a superb album of a dozen (less one original) older classic hits played by traditional jazz adepts--if not GOATS--who excel performing in this genre. “People Will Say ...

Album Review

The New Wonders: Steppin' Out

Read "Steppin' Out" reviewed by Nicholas F. Mondello

by Nicholas F. Mondello
May 27, 2024

There's something effervescent and addictive about the music of the late 1920s. Perhaps it is the fact that technological advancements allow for superior sound quality of the music of Louis Armstrong's Hot Five and Hot Seven, Bix Beiderbecke and Sidney Bechet. Reinforcement from period entertainment such as “Boardwalk Empire," (HBO, 2010-14) “The Great Gatsby," (Warner Brothers, 2013) et al, has opened new ears to the classic stylings. With Steppin' Out, cornetist Mike Davis and his cadre of cats offer a ...

Album Review

The New Wonders: The New Wonders

Read "The New Wonders" reviewed by Nicholas F. Mondello

by Nicholas F. Mondello
October 16, 2023

In the vast array of jazz styles, if there is one segment which rises phoenix-like over time, it is the music of the first third of the Twentieth Century, the era which saw Louis Armstrong, Bix Beiderbecke, Duke Ellington, and other individuals and bands ignite popularity. With “the New Wonders," NY-based cornetist, vocalist, arranger and ardent student of that early jazz era Mike Davis has pulled together some of New York's finest trad players in a romp and stomp collection ...