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Letizia Gambi: Blue Monday
by James Nadal
As the world continues to shrink--musically speaking of course--the melding of American jazz with Mediterranean melody is another spin cycle that makes appreciation of this evolving art form so interesting. With high expectations, Neapolitan vocalist Letizia Gambi, which hails from a theatrical family, and has extensive jazz education, releases Blue Monday, an exuberant and ambitious production that takes jazz on a romantic Italian holiday. After a collaboration with drummer extraordinaire Lenny White in 2009 led to “Introducing Letizia ...
Continue ReadingTom Guarna: Rush
by Luigi Sforza
Il chitarrista, compositore e band leader newyorkese Tom Guarna è un musicista che pur muovendosi in un ambito mainstream garantisce alla sua musica tratti di assoluta riconoscibilità. Il timbro del suo strumento elettrico è tarato su frequenze jazz-rock e post-fusion, anche se l'elemento dominante risulta essere una sintassi espressiva di stampo post boppistico. Un brano come “Movement and Repose" -ad esempio--nonostante la ricchezza delle accentuazioni rielabora una serie di concetti che rimandano al virtuosismo di Allan Holdsworth.
Continue ReadingTom Guarna: Rush
by John Kelman
With his five recordings on Steeplechase since 2005's Get Together, it's hard not to think of him as a dyed-in-the-wool mainstreamer, but Tom Guarna's extracurricular activities tell a completely different story. He may love big fat hollowbody guitars and the Great American Songbook, but Guarna's work with George Colligan on Realization (Sirocco, 2005) and the stylistically broader Runaway (Sunnyside, 2008) demonstrate a purview reaching farther afield than his admittedly fine straight-ahead recordings as a leader. Even more revealing ...
Continue ReadingTom Guarna: Mad Scientist
by George Colligan
[ Editor's Note: The following interview is reprinted from George Colligan's blog, Jazztruth] I've known Brooklyn-born guitarist Tom Guarna for maybe twelve years, give or take. He used to literally live around the corner from my apartment in Park Slope, Brooklyn. We worked together in a band that drumming phenomenon Rodney Holmes had put together. I eventually asked Guarna to join an organ trio I was trying to start. This organ trio was called Mad Science and eventually, ...
Continue ReadingGeorge Colligan: Mad Science
by Terrell Kent Holmes
Noted keyboardist, group leader and ubiquitous sideman George Colligan has applied his chops to the Hammond B-3 with his latest release, Mad Science, which is also the name of the trio he's assembled: guitarist Tom Guarna, drummer Rodney Holmes and guest star Gary Thomas on tenor sax and flute.“Barbarians" is a funk-driven opener. Colligan and Thomas state the theme, then Colligan takes the first solo, dotting the landscape with single note statements that quickly merge into eloquent riffs ...
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