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Trent Austin: Pulling an Ace from the Musical Deck
by Nicholas F. Mondello
New England-based trumpeter, Trent Austin is indeed a Renaissance Man--multi-genre performer, business owner, trumpet/brass equipment designer, clinician and teacher. He's also one of the most beloved and respected--by the greatest of players and up-and-coming players--in each of those activities. I caught up with Austin as he plans to head out on tour in October with the ...
Ron Aprea: Remembering Blakey
by Nicholas F. Mondello
Legendary drummer Art Blakey, he of the eponymous Jazz Messengers, is regularly attributed with saying: “Jazz washes away the dust of everyday life." Well, if that's the case, this superb recording from saxophonist Ron Aprea and his cleaning crew certainly left the studio spotless, and themselves, to be somewhat crude but oh-so accurate, assless.This ...
Johanna Graham: Don’t Let Me Be Lonely
by Nicholas F. Mondello
Years back, there was a fascinating self-help book entitled The Road Less Traveled (Simon and Schuster, 1978) by psychiatrist, M. Scott Peck. The premise of that long-time #1 best-selling effort was simple: in Life sometimes making a riskier choice--where the unknown awaits--can be the most rewarding. Perhaps taking Peck's suggested advice, Don't Let Me Be Lonely ...
Randy Brecker: Night in Calisia
by Nicholas F. Mondello
The waters of history significantly bathe Kalisz, Poland's oldest city. Specifically, they source back when Kalisz was an important stop on the Amber Road to Rome. Historical streams of another type also run broadly through this exuberantly satisfying recording offered by the triumvirate of trumpeter, Randy Brecker, pianist/composer Wlodek Pawlik, and the hometown Kalisz Philharmonic.
Judy Wexler: What I See
by Nicholas F. Mondello
When they excavated the world-famous La Brea tar pits in Los Angeles, scientists discovered an other-worldly array of fossilized treasures. Who would have thought that, millennia ago, in the middle of Tinseltown, saber-toothed tigers and mammoths were sashaying down Rodeo Drive? In an analogous way, What I See from Judy Wexler yields surprisingly terrific finds, primarily ...
Superbrass: Brass Taps
by Nicholas F. Mondello
Superbrass' Brass Taps is all wet. Now, before one misinterprets, an explanation is in order. Roger Argente, Principal bass trombonist with the Royal Philharmonic and his illustrious crew comprised of Britain's finest brass and percussion players are sending up eleven impeccably performed original selections all inspired by and programatically about H2O in one way or another.
Lyn Stanley: Lost In Romance
by Nicholas F. Mondello
A hardened cynic might presume that the song royalty beneficiaries of the estates of Irving Berlin, Johnny Mercer, Harold Arlen, George and Ira Gershwin and other song giants would mercenarily welcome yet another Great American Songbook-rich recording by a female vocalist. However, when those warhorse ("wornhorse?") compositions--and a few shrewdly selected other ones--are sent up tails-and-gowns ...
Tony Adamo: Miles of Blu
by Nicholas F. Mondello
Long before rappers and scratchers, resurrected Mummies, and Lord Buckley's hipsters and flipsters, the ancient Greeks had a name for “cats" like Tony Adamo--rhapsode. The homonym notwithstanding, a rhapsode was a speak-singer--who plucked his lyre and “spung" (spoke-sung) expressive tales of towering, powerful Gods and the tribulations of mortals below them. Pan pipes and percussion types ...
Tyler Mire Big Band: Enter the Atmosph-Mire
by Nicholas F. Mondello
Originally televised back in the black-and-white 1960s, Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone broadcast an episode--now classic--in which miniature alien spacemen land and terrorize a woman who is frightfully alone in her farmhouse. The cover art depicting happy little “musician-nauts" walking in space notwithstanding, Enter the Atmosph-Mire does no terrorizing. It does, however, shoot for, hit, and ...
Lorraine Feather: Attachments
by Nicholas F. Mondello
Let's get this out up front: Lorraine Feather is a collaborator extraordinaire. Before taking that down a darker path and picturing black op sites, duct tape, and stubbly- faced bad cats, let's spill: take a masterful wordsmith who's also a sublime vocal talent, surround her with highly intelligent soundscapes and wrap with some of L.A.'s usual ...
