Articles by Jim Trageser
Dan Siegel at MiraCosta College
by Jim Trageser
Dan Siegel Band MiraCosta College Concert Hall Oceanside, CAOctober 20, 2023 An old maxim of business is to under-promise and over-deliver. By that measure, pianist Dan Siegel's show at the MiraCosta College Concert Hall in Oceanside, Calif., was a massive success. The show was simply billed as The Dan Siegel Band, which barely hinted at the one-off lineup he assembled for the 10-song show on the campus where he's taught for more than ...
read moreDawg Yawp: So Much More
by Jim Trageser
On a 2004 remix compilation, What Is Hip? (Warner Brothers), Tsuper Tsunami turned Seals & Crofts' early '70s folk-rock classic “Summer Breeze" into a percolating bit of dance-ready electronica. But it does not seem that either Jimmy Seals nor Dash Crofts were involved in the electronica on the new take of their recording. On So Much More, contemporary folk rockers Dawg Yawp go full-on acid mode all on their own, and the results are every bit ...
read moreEddie "Lockjaw" Davis and Shirley Scott: Cookin’ with Jaws and the Queen: The Legendary Prestige Cookbook Albums
by Jim Trageser
In a sign that the art of the box set continues to evolve, and that history never runs in a straight line, a lavishly produced box set of tenor giant Eddie “Lockjaw" Davis and organist Shirley Scott is being released not only on CD but on high grade vinyl LPs and downloads as well. Compare that to Bing Crosby's 1954 set, which came out on seventeen 45s in an actual box with a locking clasp and key.
read moreWill Bernard Finds His Own Path To Jazz Career
by Jim Trageser
Guitarist Will Bernard doesn't consider himself a “regular" jazz player. He says this occurred to him when he was being asked to play on some recording sessions in New York. “In New York, I've been doing some recording—I did three records for PosiTone, which is more of a jazz label. They're actually based in L.A., but they record mostly in New York. He was calling me in to do jazz sessions, and I think, 'I'm not ...
read moreNaama Gheber's Detours Lead Straight To Jazz Career
by Jim Trageser
There is no “normal" journey to becoming an established, professional musician. Every path is different; each story one of a kind. But some are perhaps more different than most. Naama Gheber's surely ranks among those in the “more different" category: not many jazz singers began their adult years by serving as an intelligence analyst in the Israeli air force. Both born and raised in Be'er Sheva, Israel, she fell in love with jazz not ...
read moreBishu Chattopadhyay: Kolkata Stories
by Jim Trageser
Given this album's title, the fact that the leader's previous album was titled Harlem Meets Hooghly (self-produced, 2020), and even the song titles on this release, it's not unrealistic to be looking for an Indo-jazz fusion release in the vein of John McLaughlin, Warren Senders or simakDialog. But despite the Indian album and song titles, this is a straight-ahead post-bop album, closer to Monty Alexander than McLaughlin. Only in an occasional passage does one hear influences from the ...
read moreVarious Artists: Putumayo Presents Jazz Christmas
by Jim Trageser
The Putumayo World Music compilations have achieved an enviable brand status with their wide-ranging stylistic variety and the distinctively cheerful covers by artist Lisa Gonzalez. The latest entry, Putumayo Presents Jazz Christmas joins previous entrants Putumayo Presents New Orleans Christmas (2007) and Putumayo Presents A Jazz & Blues Christmas (2008) in offering collections of holiday-themed entrants in a jazz vein. As with all of its jazz releases, Putumayo founder and curator Dan Storper's taste in jazz ...
read moreNorah Jones: I Dream of Christmas
by Jim Trageser
With Tony Bennett's retirement, the mantle of legitimate straight-ahead pop crooners is now firmly in the hands of subsequent generations: Harry Connick, Jr., Diana Krall and Norah Jones. Not pure jazz singers, of which there are numerous stellar examples, these singers are more in the Bennett-Sinatra-Fitzgerald mold, bringing a jazz sensibility to pop music. It is in the area of seasonal Christmas music that the crooners have had perhaps their greatest influence. From Andy Williams to Connie Stevens, ...
read moreEmma-Jean Thackray: Yellow
by Jim Trageser
Many of the most prominent exponents of melding jazz with soul, funk and hip-hop have been trumpeters. Even in the late 1970s, Chuck Mangione was already taking soul-jazz and moving it further into an R&B orbit (and taking heat from jazz purists for supposedly “selling out"), and in so doing exposing lots of pop fans to jazz for the first time. Herb Alpert, no stranger to bringing jazz influences to pop music, transitioned from his jazz-influenced easy listening ...
read moreVarious artists: Changüí - The Sound of Guantánamo
by Jim Trageser
In much of our supposedly modern world, there is a distinct demarcation between the creators of music, and those who listen. Musician and audience, the former expecting to earn a living by performing for the latter. More and more, Western society's division of labor is stripping away the idea of communal music, Except, apparently, in Cuba. Or at the very least, Guantánamo province. What brings this to mind is the splendid new three-disc collection ...
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