Brass Tracks
March 2006 By Doug Ramsey
Blues & Other Happy Moments
Rhubarb
"Happy" is the key word for this CD reissue of a session that appeared as an LP on the Palo Alto label 25 years ago, then sank out of sight. The playing and writing by the Barone brothers and their colleagues has the buoyancy and radiance of eight people...
March 2006 By Doug Ramsey
Controlled Nonchalance, Vol. 2
Sixteen Ruby Braff Arbors CDs ago, we got the first volume of Controlled Nonchalance. That was in 1995. Now comes a second installment from the same gig at the Regattabar in Cambridge, Mass. It is tempting to say that this is one of Braff's best recordings...
March 2006 By Doug Ramsey
Matters of Time
Jazz Compass
Jenkins left Los Angeles five years ago to teach at the Eastman School in Rochester, N.Y., but maintains his West Coast ties. He records for Jazz Compass, the L.A. label he formed with Joe LaBarbera, Larry Koonse and Tom Warrington, but his band on Matters...
March 2006 By Doug Ramsey
Just Like Me
Jazzed Media
Kaye's trumpet and his quintet are in the spirit of the Lee Morgan, Blue Mitchell and Freddie Hubbard Blue Note sessions of the 1960s. If not innovative, the veteran of Ray Charles' big band is fleet in his uptempo soloing, capable of blistering passages...
March 2006 By Doug Ramsey
This Is Ryan
VideoArts
Ryan Kisor still lives in New York but has migrated from a Dutch label to a Japanese company. Since The Awakening, his last album for Criss Cross in 2003, he has made six for Videoarts. His Videoarts CDs are hard to find in the U.S., pricey at $29 and, if...
March 2006 By Doug Ramsey
As Long as I Live
Despite evidence to the contrary at hundreds of trad revival festivals and parties, the classic-jazz repertoire is doomed neither to molder nor fester. Warhorses can be winners if their riders know how to handle them. As if to prove the point, Reinhart is...
March 2006 By Doug Ramsey
Reflections
Nagel-Heyer
Reflections follows up Roditi's earlier 341 (2002) and Light in the Dark (2004), both also with pianist Klaus Ignatzek and bassist Jean-Louis Rassinfosse. The absence of a drummer does nothing to impede swing on the faster tunes, and on the medium pieces...
March 2006 By Doug Ramsey
Can You Dig Being Dug?
Itsus Jazz
If neurologists are correct about the right brain being creative and the left practical, it would be reasonable to conclude that a trumpet player whose left brain is dominant will be a lead player and one whose right brain is dominant will be an improvising...
March 2006 By Doug Ramsey
InnerPlay
Basset Hound
Self surrounds himself with 44 of his closest jazz and studio friends, 26 of whom are a string section. His tuba has been featured on more than a thousand movie sound tracks and in hundreds of television shows. Self's fluency astonishes on the instrument...
March 2006 By Doug Ramsey
Live at the Jazz Bakery
Summit
Swartz's support comes from the power-in-reserve rhythm section of Bob Florence's big band. There is something about Florence's piano playing that attracts adventurous young trumpet players. His occasional partnership with Ingrid Jensen has produced memorable...
