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Chris Buzzelli: I Can Pick My Friends
by Jack Bowers
Chris Buzzelli, who picks his friends as carefully and perceptively as he picks his seven-string American Archtop, has chosen three of the country’s most accomplished Jazz guitarists, Gene Bertoncini, Randy Johnston and Jack Wilkins, to share the ride on his second album as a leader. Each of them is on board for three numbers, with Buzzelli, ...
Bobby Shew / The Kjell : I Can't Say No
by Jack Bowers
Brilliance can be a blessing or a curse. Some musicians make excellence seem so easy that hardly anyone is surprised by another superlative performance, simply accepting it as a matter of course. As Exhibit A, there’s trumpeter Bobby Shew, who has been around for years, paid his dues in groups both large and small, has a ...
The Joe LaBarbera Quintet: Live!
by Jack Bowers
Stung too often by inscrutable contracts and creative bookkeeping, a growing number of jazz musicians are taking matters into their own hands, producing and distributing albums on their own independent labels as an alternative to the bondage in which they’ve long been held by corporate overseers. Four of these artists -- trumpeter Clay Jenkins, guitarist Larry ...
Larry Koonse: Americana
by Jack Bowers
Guitarist Larry Koonse recorded Americana in ’97, then had to wait for the passage of six years and the formation of a receptive record label to see it released. The label is Jazz Compass, an online venture established by Koonse, bassist Tom Warrington, drummer Joe LaBarbera and trumpeter Clay Jenkins to “provide the serious jazz listener ...
David Hazeltine: Manhattan Autumn
by Jack Bowers
It’s always a pleasure to review an album on which tenor saxophonist Eric Alexander is showcased, as I'm pretty sure beforehand that I’ll thoroughly enjoy it. That sense of happy anticipation is appreciably heightened when he’s in the company of such accomplished playmates as leader / pianist David Hazeltine, bassist Peter Washington and drummer Joe Farnsworth, ...
The Straight Ahead Big Band: First Take / Second Track
by Jack Bowers
As far as I know there’s no Indian chief playing with the suitably named Straight Ahead Big Band, but there’s a doctor, a lawyer, even social workers, clerks and a couple of elementary school music teachers. In other words, just a group of dedicated part-timers who come together to rehearse in leader Steve Fischer’s garage and ...
Keith Ellis and the Sessions Big Band: Softly as in a Morning Sunrise / Tribute
by Jack Bowers
I don’t ordinarily review discs I have to buy, but April has been an especially slow month for new big- band releases, enabling me to bend the rule temporarily and salute the late trombonist Keith Ellis, who led the Missouri-based Sessions Big Band and died only a few days after the most recent of these albums ...
Michelle Conte: Lucky Me!
by Jack Bowers
It must be genetic, because there’s no doubt that musical talent runs in some families. The Joneses, the Heaths, the LaBarberas — and the Elfs (or should that be Elves?). Michelle Conte, whose brother is the well-known guitarist (and entrepreneur) Mark Elf, makes her recorded debut on Lucky Me!, and it’s hard to believe when listening ...
Alex Coke: New Texas Swing
by Jack Bowers
When one keeps glancing at the “elapsed time” while listening to the opening track on an album to see how much longer it has to run, that’s not a good sign. Alex Coke’s New Texas Swing, which was actually recorded in the Netherlands, is full of sound and fury, but its significance is lessened by unrelenting ...
The Matt Wilson Quartet: Humidity
by Jack Bowers
The bane of any reviewer: clearly well-played music that scarcely moves him an inch. I’m sorry, but I simply haven’t the mental capacity, musical acumen or whatever it takes to appreciate Humidity, drummer Matt Wilson's fifth album for Palmetto Records, even though Wilson and his companions are first-class players who are giving it everything they have. ...
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