Home » Jazz Articles » Paul Bollenback
Jazz Articles about Paul Bollenback
Stan Killian: Brooklyn Calling
by Richard J Salvucci
Years ago, a group of folks were having dinner at a Westside San Antonio, Texas, restaurant known as Los Barrios. Occasionally, some restaurants there would start a jazz policy. In a place better known for mariachis, this would be a pleasant surprise. One Friday evening, some kid was playing tenor sax, quite a bit of tenor sax, in fact. The guy's name—because getting his card seemed like a good idea—was Stan Killian, not a familiar one among the roll of ...
read moreAlternative Guitar Summit: Honoring Pat Martino, Volume 1
by Jack Bowers
Each year the Alternative Guitar Summit, led by Joel Harrison, presents a concert to honor a living jazz composer/guitarist. That wasn't possible in 2021, however, as venues in and around New York City were shuttered tight by the Covid-19 pandemic. Meanwhile, it was clear that the chosen honoree, the great Pat Martino, was gravely ill and might not have another year to live. With that in mind, members of the Summit took their guitars straight to a studio to record ...
read morePat Bianchi: Something to Say: The Music of Stevie Wonder
by Victor L. Schermer
This album is a tribute to Stevie Wonder, who beyond his popularity and fame has always been a an exceptional musician. It features four superb musicians, an organ trio consisting of Pat Bianchi on Hammond B-3 organ, Paul Bollenback on guitar, and Byron Landham on drums, with Wayne Escoffery as guest tenor saxophonist that honors Wonder's work with artistry and attention to his unique style. It synthesizes the jazz swing idiom with R&B/ soul music, both of which inspired Wonder ...
read morePat Bianchi: Something to Say: The Music of Stevie Wonder
by Jack Bowers
When considering pop artists whose music might readily lend itself to a jazz milieu, Stevie Wonder's name isn't one that springs readily to mind. Organist Pat Bianchi, however, felt that Wonder had Something to Say in a jazz context, so he set about canvassing Wonder's art and reimagining it in terms of an organ trio, accentuating the composer's singular gift for melody and harmony and replacing the lyrics with solos by organ, guitar and (in two instances) tenor saxophone.
read moreGemma Sherry: Music To Dream To
by Jack Bowers
Vocalist Gemma Sherry's fourth album, Music to Dream To, recorded in July 2020, closely follows her third, Let's Get Serious, released less than a year earlier. This latest album expresses Sherry's love for the music of South America in general and Brazilian bossa nova in particular, with half a dozen engaging songs that sway to an irresistible bossa (or samba) beat. Two numbers—"The Telephone Song" and “Keep Talking"—are repeated ("acoustic version," the track listing points out), and even counting the ...
read moreGemma Sherry: Let's Get Serious
by C. Michael Bailey
A perfect response to challenge and change. In the parlance of the agrarian American South, Gemma Sherry is “makin' hay while the sun shines. Let's Get Serious is the singer's light-as-air, coquettishly coy wink at the COVID-19 pandemic—a wink as opposed to any other response, as Sherry is a true Lady. The title of her third full-length (in 2020 alone) recording is deliciously ironic as the tone is anything but. Globally, this release is best defined in the ...
read morePaul Bollenback: Portraits In Space And Time
by Dan Bilawsky
Guitarist Paul Bollenback is valued by listeners and musicians alike for his incisive and inventive guitar work, wholly in the tradition while simultaneously branching out beyond the same old same old. His playing has been a key ingredient--in some cases, the key ingredient--in much of organ kingpin Joey DeFrancesco's recorded output, saxophonist Jim Snidero's highly praised Savant dates, vocalist Chris McNulty's post-millennial releases, and elsewhere, but it's his own albums that truly provide a full picture of his talent(s). Bollenback ...
read more
Giveaway
Days remaining: 6
