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Ellis Leahy: Cheek to Cheek: Ellis Leahy Sings Sinatra
by Dan McClenaghan
These days a compact disc can be recorded, manufactured and packaged on a relatively modest budget. The upside: tons of talented musicians unable to hook up with a major label are now able to get their music “out there" to the public. The downside: an awful lot of horrid crap that ought to get trucked right ...
Kerry Strayer Septet: Mentor
by Dan McClenaghan
This one swings right out of the gate on a cool groove of four horn harmony that gives way to reedman Gary Foster's incisive, clean-toned alto sax solo on “Saturday 10 a.m." A septet effort under the leadership of Kansas City-based baritone sax man Kerry Strayer, Mentor showcases the considerable talents of Foster on alto and ...
Colin Stranahan: Dreams Untold
by Dan McClenaghan
"No one's interested in your lack of confidence," the late bandleader/drummer Art Blakey would tell a fledgling band member. “Get out there and play with an attitude."Drummer Colin Stranahan, whether or not he's heard that specific message, seems to have taken the spirit of the advice to heart. Though it's not so much an ...
Matt Jorgensen + 451: Hope
by Dan McClenaghan
Do they still give out Grammy Awards for best cover art? If so, here's a nominee: a peaceful retriever in repose, chin on the floor, captured in a sanguine tone on Matt Jorgensen + 451's Hope. A great cover, of course, does not a successful CD make. It's the music. The music ...
Tim Jensen: A Mind for the Scenery
by Dan McClenaghan
Red flags flare up when a disc comes in with the tag “eclectic" lurking in the press material. The New Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines the word as “selecting or made up of what seems best of varied sources." But the word sometimes serves as a shorthand for—in the world of music assessment—unfocused or lacking continuity of vision. ...
Bill Cunliffe/Gary Foster: It's About Love
by Dan McClenaghan
The genius of this teaming of pianist Bill Cunliffe and saxophonist Gary Foster on It's About Love is their ability to play jazz that evokes images of dapper men decked out in gleaming tuxedos, elegant bejewled ladies draped in sparkling evening gowns, all sipping from long-stemmed glasses of bubbly champagne. Classy sounding stuff. And Bill Cunliffe ...
Jim Robitaille: To Music
by Dan McClenaghan
Just about every new jazz guitarist who comes down the road cites Wes Montgomery as an influence. For once, on Jim Robitaille's To Music, you can hear it in the fluid grace, the slight bite in the tone. But the set isn't retro in any way; To Music has an unmistakable modern sound based on the ...
Satoko Fujii Quartet: Zephyros
by Dan McClenaghan
The opening cut on Zephyros, “The Future of the Past," rumbles in like a thunderstorm, full of bass/drum thunder and scattered piano precipitation, cold rain and spatterings of hail, sudden downpours and sharp cracklings of shattering icicles, a prelude to the eye-of-the-storm, ruminative bass solo full of dark omens and sporadic raindrops punctuating the warning.
Michael Vlatkovich Tritet: Queen Dynamo
by Dan McClenaghan
It's hard to say how the average jazz fan comes to an appreciation of improvised music—and we're talking here spontaneous compositions, not merely an improvised solo in the middle of a mainstream song. One avid listener's introduction to the genre occured some years ago at a concert/lecture in a small state college auditorium. Two young musicians—bass ...
Percy Heath: A Love Song
by Dan McClenaghan
On the photos included with A Love Song, Percy Heath shows off the greatest grin in jazz since Louis Armstrong. And he has good reason to flash that smile; at eighty years young, he's just issued his first recording as a leader (can that be true, after fifty plus years in the business?), where he displays ...
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