Rumba Club didn't just hop on the latest Latin music bandwagon. The nine-member ensemble has been playing spirited jazz and salsa around the Baltimore area for over a decade. And with any luck, Espiritista, their fine new release on the Palmetto label, will help win them more than a regional following. With a three-horn front line ...

Article: Album Review

Rumba Club: Espiritista

by Glenn Astarita
December 1, 1999

Produced by bassist, percussionist Andy Gonzalez of the renowned “Fort Apache Band”, “Rumba Club” fuses Latin and Afro-Caribbean rhythms with a straight up, front line horn section amid heterogeneous rhythmic structures on Espiritista ! The proceedings commence with a spunky version of Wayne Shorter’s “Children of the Night” featuring crystalline phrasing by alto saxophonist Paul Hannah ...

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Article: Album Review

The Larry Goldings Trio: Moonbird

by Jack Bowers
November 1, 1999

Larry Goldings’ organ trio gets down in a hurry on the funky “Crawdaddy,” which introduces the group’s latest recording, its first for Palmetto Records. Goldings, Bernstein and Stewart have been playing together for a decade (that’s close to a century in music–group years) and have arrived at a “Comfort Zone” that must be the envy of ...

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Article: Album Review

The Matt Wilson Quartet: Smile

by Jack Bowers
November 1, 1999

Drummer Matt Wilson leads a piano–less quartet with two horns, but if you’re expecting the second coming of Mulligan / Baker, you can shelve that notion. Wilson’s group is no lame throwback to the ’50s; on the contrary, it is almost obsessively up–to–date, using sophisticated harmonies, shifting time signatures, unconventional sounds and eccentric improvisations to press ...