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Gumbi Ortiz: Stepping Out With Miami
by Woodrow Wilkins
Gumbi Ortiz's passion for jamming helped launch the percussionist's professional career. Blending his Afro-Cuban heritage with various styles of music, he's followed the lead of Carlos Santana in mixing Latin sounds with pop. Although he started playing the sax when he was a child, to honor his sax-playing father, he preferred percussion instruments. After ...
Randy Brecker: Some Skunk Funk
by Woodrow Wilkins
The Brecker Brothers burst onto the fusion scene in the 1970s. After many years of working separately, Randy and Mike Brecker reunited in the early 1990s. The brothers' affiliations--together or separately--have included Billy Cobham, David Sanborn, Steely Dan, Spyro Gyra, Carly Simon, Jaco Pastorius' Word of Mouth Big Band, Bruce Springsteen and Janis Joplin. Collectively, the ...
Gumbi Ortiz: Miami
by Woodrow Wilkins
Gumbi Ortiz's debut is a musical smorgasbord that represents the diverse cultural influences that have shaped the percussionist's life. A longtime member of guitarist Al Di Meola's band, Ortiz has a passion for jamming--and food. It's the former that helped launch his professional career. Blending his Afro-Cuban heritage with jazz and other styles of music, he's ...
The Moreira Project: The Journey
by Woodrow Wilkins
It's not easy to deliver an infectious groove without repeating sounds that have been heard so much they have become cliche. However, when said groove is melded with a variety of cultural influences, competent musicianship on every instrument and a sense of adventure, you've got something special--like The Journey, an hour and 18 minutes of musical ...
Donald Fagen: Morph the Cat
by Woodrow Wilkins
There's an engaging quality to Donald Fagen's songwriting and perfectionism that makes Steely Dan fans flock to his solo albums. While The Nightfly (1982) and Kamakiriad (1993) were expressly Fagen, Morph the Cat closely resembles Steely Dan without Walter Becker. The lineup partially reflects the ensemble that recorded the Dan's 2003 release, Everything Must Go, and ...
Robin McKelle: A Different Approach
by Woodrow Wilkins
Robin McKelle doesn't fancy herself a jazz singer. However, with a little prompting from her producer, she has released a first-rate jazz album. Unlike other vocalists whose debuts have featured many of the same standards, McKelle went back a little further with Introducing Robin McKelle. She even approached the process differently, spending her own money to ...
Bob James: Following His Heart
by Woodrow Wilkins
If you've listened to contemporary jazz and its relatives over the last 30-plus years, chances are you've come across pianist Bob James. In fact, you don't have to be a jazz fan to have heard his music. He scored the soundtrack to the television series Taxi, including the hit theme song, “Angela. His career has placed ...
Gerald Albright: New Beginnings
by Woodrow Wilkins
The best songs on New Beginnings come before the midway point. Even so, the rest isn't bad. With a variable lineup of sidemen, including Walter and Wallace Scott of the Whispers, Jeff Lorber and Paul Jackson Jr., Gerald Albright delivers a nice mix of smooth jazz and instrumental soul grooves on his Peak Records debut.
Pieces of a Dream: Pillow Talk
by Woodrow Wilkins
In a way, Pieces of a Dream is the Steely Dan of smooth jazz. For most of its existence, “The Dan was Donald Fagen, Walter Becker and an ever-changing assortment of session musicians. Pieces of a Dream is James K. Lloyd and Curtis Harmon. And like Steely Dan, Pieces of a Dream employs a variable mix ...
Jaco Pastorius Big Band: The Word Is Out
by Woodrow Wilkins
When Word of Mouth Revisited came out in the summer of 2003, I predicted it would hold up as the best new jazz album of the year. I'll make no such claims for The Word Is Out. It's already trailing Spyro Gyra's Wrapped in a Dream, Janis Siegel's A Thousand Beautiful Things and Steve Khan's The ...
