Royce Campbell takes a far more traditional approach to playing with fellow guitarists on Six By Six, a 1993 recording originally released on the Japanese Paddlewheel label and recently issued in the States by Moon Cycle. Backed by four separate swinging rhythm sections, Campbell blows fluid, bop-infused lines alongside guitar greats Larry Coryell, Pat Martino, John Abercrombie, Dave Stryker and Pizzarelli. Highlights include the blistering exchanges with Martino on a briskly tempoed “Milestones,” a funky treatment of “Love for Sale” with Coryell, a burning “Angular Blues” with Abercrombie,” a beautifully relaxed, swinging interpretation of Bill Evans’ chamberlike “Interplay” with Stryker and a lush “Darn That Dream” with Bucky Pizzarelli. Campbell is an extremely gifted and versatile player whom jazz guitar enthusiasts would be well advised to check out.
Originally PublishedRelated Posts
Sonny Terry/Brownie McGhee: Backwater Blues
Start Your Free Trial to Continue Reading
Become a JazzTimes member to explore our complete archive of interviews, profiles, columns, and reviews written by music’s best journalists and critics.
Jonathan Butler: The Simple Life
Jonathan Butler’s optimistic music belies a dirt-poor childhood growing up in a South Africa segregated by apartheid. Live in South Africa, a new CD and DVD package, presents a sense of the resulting inner turmoil, mixed with dogged resolve, that paved the way to his status as an icon in his country and successful musician outside of it. Looking back, the 46-year-old Butler says today, the driving forces that led to his overcoming apartheid-the formal policy of racial separation and economic discrimination finally dismantled in 1993-were family, faith and abundant talent.
“When we were kids, our parents never talked about the ANC [African National Congress] or Nelson Mandela,” he says. Butler was raised as the youngest child in a large family. They lived in a house patched together by corrugated tin and cardboard, in the “coloreds only” township of Athlone near Cape Town. “They never talked about struggles so we never knew what was happening.”
Start Your Free Trial to Continue Reading
Become a JazzTimes member to explore our complete archive of interviews, profiles, columns, and reviews written by music’s best journalists and critics.
Harry Connick, Jr.: Direct Hits
Two decades after his commercial breakthrough, Harry Connick Jr. taps legendary producer Clive Davis for an album of crooner roots and beloved tunes
Scott LaFaro
Previously unavailable recordings and a new bio illuminate the legend of bassist Scott LaFaro