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Alain Bradette: State of Mind
by Nicholas F. Mondello
Contemporary: here today; now. However, in today's speed-of-light-is-too-slow world, that word is reminiscent of quantum physicists who, when viewing particles at subatomic levels, see activity that has already taken place. Ephemeral. Passé. Bland in essence, it has immediate and short-lived appeal. Such is the state sometimes with music categorized as “contemporary." While one ...
Stan Kenton Alumni Band: Have Band Will Travel
by Nicholas F. Mondello
Stan Kenton Alumni Band Have Band Will Travel Summit Records 2010 In the golden era of television, the late 1950s and early 1960s, there was a popular Western series titled Have Gun Will Travel. It starred Richard Boone as the San Francisco-based Paladin, a dressed all in black ...
Carl Fischer & Organic Groove Ensemble: Adverse Times
by Nicholas F. Mondello
Carl Fischer & Organic Groove Ensemble Adverse Times Fisch Music 2010 Sometimes it seems that trumpet players get more of the spotlight than other instrument-playing bandleaders. Perhaps it's because of the tremendous legacy emanating from Louis Armstrong's tree. The nature of the trumpet speaks of leadership, ...
Keith Pray's Big Soul Ensemble: Live at the Lark Tavern
by Nicholas F. Mondello
There's something marvelously intimate and involving about hearing a swinging big band live in a smaller venue. It can be let-inhibitions-go dark, bump-elbow tight and, with food and drink circling about, noisy. Perhaps the big concert (big bucks?) format of the Radio Cities, Symphony Halls or Lincoln Centers--the stuff seen on PBS (American Public Television)--slightly diminishes ...
Lorraine Feather: Ages
by Nicholas F. Mondello
It is immediately evident listening to the work of lyricist-vocalist Lorraine Feather that she is a gracious, respectful lover of words. As a brilliant writer and performer, she revels in the power, dynamic intricacies, kooky parallels, and yin-yangs of words and funhouse-mirror entendres. And when she adds to that love a sensitive vocal style that is ...
Joey Pero: Breaking Sound Barriers
by Nicholas F. Mondello
The great lead and jazz trumpeter Bobby Shew tells his students that “talent is a matter of breaking barriers." While trumpeter Joey Pero might have brilliantly selected and covered “Defying Gravity" from Broadway's Wicked on his breakthrough CD, Resonance (Resonance Music Group, 2009), Pero has been defying and utterly smashing performance barriers all his life. What ...
Jose Rodriguez: Moments In Life
by Nicholas F. Mondello
Sometimes fascinating listening experiences can emanate from surprising sources. Such is the example with Moments in Life, an excellent CD from bassist Jose Rodriguez. Here a string quartet plus rhythm section delivers a five-finger handful of wide-ranging, highly enjoyable music with more than a dollop of Latin sauce. While there is no straight ...
Jon Crowley Quintet: Connections
by Nicholas F. Mondello
In what might be the most perfectly titled CD of recent memory, Connections is a fine effort by talented trumpeter/ composer Jon Crowley and his exciting group. While Crowley might not be a household name just yet, this release announces, anoints and validates him as a fine jazz performer, writer and leader. What ...
Amanda Carr: Common Thread: Amanda Carr and the Kenny Hadley Big Band
by Nicholas F. Mondello
If vocalist Amanda Carr were a place, she would probably be Rodeo Drive, Chicago's Magnificent Mile, or New York's elegant 57th Street. With Common Thread, she validates the fact that she has the vocal elegance, phrasing sophistication, premier jazz chops, and the sheer class to back up that hypothesis. Complemented beautifully here by ...
Adam Rapa: Life on the Road
by Nicholas F. Mondello
In Italian, rapa translates, ever so blandly, as turnip. In the dialect of music and trumpeting, Rapa probably translates as supernova. Reminiscent of the Hubble Telescope's display of spectacular images of galaxies far away, their beauty exploding in viewer's eyes and hearts, Adam Rapa's Life on the Road is a prismatic and almost spectacular CD. On ...
