Home » Search Center » Results: Richard J Salvucci
Results for "Richard J Salvucci"
Emma Smith: Bitter Orange
by Richard J Salvucci
Some singers are so distinctive that it is tough to find the proper adjectives to describe them. Emma Smith has a memorable and arresting voice. She has, as musicians say, 'something,' which is a style that leaves no room for doubt. Second, she is not afraid of being herself and out there for all to hear. ...
Kris Adams: Away
by Richard J Salvucci
Troubled times, unsettled times, uncertain times, all produce a certain sort of music. It may be--as in the case of Away--music of loss. In this case, it is mostly music written by guitarist-composer Michael O'Neil. O'Neil is admittedly not well known. Yet in this soulful, translucent recording, a few musicians, one of whom knew O'Neill, provide ...
Richard Guba: Songs for Stuffed Animals
by Richard J Salvucci
Ok, admittedly, the title is not going to attract many rational listeners. As one understands, the Songs for Stuffed Animals is explained by a band performing tunes for stuffed animals that accompany children during a busy day. Ok. That may well be the case, but the local stuffed animals are not saying. There are quite a ...
Benjie Porecki: All That Matters
by Richard J Salvucci
From the cover graphics to its musical content, this is a funky, soulful, bluesy, and yet oddly reassuring recording. Benjie Porecki has at least a half a dozen other titles to his name, and has played with Carlos Santana, Chaka Khan, Nnenna Freelon Stevie Wonder and Tom Scott. Porecki is primarily a pianist, but ...
Jake Hertzog: The Ozark Concerto
by Richard J Salvucci
As Terry Teachout very accurately wrote, “The relationship between jazz and classical music has often been close...but is ultimately equivocal" ("Jazz and Classical Music: To the Third Stream and Beyond," in Bill Kirchner, editor, The Oxford Companion to Jazz, Oxford University Press, 2000). Equivocal is a tough word. It can mean suspicious, doubtful or uncertain. Spend ...
Billy Lester: High Standards
by Richard J Salvucci
This is a very difficult recording to evaluate. If Billy Lester is living in Italy, the Italians are lucky. Someone has to be beyond sophisticated to pull off what Lester has done. He has, in essence, taken the GAS (Great American Songbook) and, with perhaps one exception, has improvised to the chord changes over the tunes. ...
Satchmocracy: Satchmocracy vol. 2
by Richard J Salvucci
It is not easy to keep up with all the new jazz being recorded. It was perhaps easier in the 1950s or 1960s, when a couple of major labels did the bulk of the recording. An artist either made it that way or went unheard except in his or her hometown. For ...
Miles Davis: Miles '55: The Prestige Recordings
by Richard J Salvucci
It is hard to imagine any casual jazz fan failing a blindfold test on the vinyls on offer here. It is a game people play: how quickly can you identify the performer. A lot of horn players make it into the competition, because horns are boisterous and mimic the human voice and persona. Clark Terry, some ...
Cal Tjader: Amazonas
by Richard J Salvucci
Multi-instrumentalist Cal Tjader has been gone for over forty years. Had he lived, he would be in his nineties today. The West Coast scene he entered, first as a drummer, then as a vibraphonist, was a world of clubs, acoustic bands, and enthusiastic promoters who pushed their favorite artists' careers. For Tjader, it was San Francisco, ...
Gunhild Carling: Jazz Is My Lifestyle
by Richard J Salvucci
Sometimes there is a tendency to take a performance less than seriously, especially if an artist uses a bit of self-satire as part of the act. Pianist Victor Borge had this problem--"comic virtuoso" he was called--and even trumpet player Jack Sheldon, to a degree, had to blow the roof off sometimes to remind the audience of ...
