JAZZBO NOTES RECOMMENDED RECORDING
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If there was ever an appropriate title for a CD, it’s Bob Moses’ When Elephants Dream Of Music. The music is often spacey, and yet it has a solid bottom end and an abundance of horns, all which serves to remind us of our ponderous friends in the animal kingdom. Composer/arranger […]

JAZZBO NOTES HIGHLY RECOMMENDED RECORDING
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As of this writing, there are 48 used copies of Melange available on Amazon.com, available used for the princely sum of 1 cent. This may be indicative of the popularity of Melange, but hardly of it’s quality.
In some ways, Plaxico’s melodic, harmonic and rhythmic ideas are quite advanced, but they […]

JAZZBO NOTES RECOMMENDED RECORDING
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I’ve got a confession to make. I didn’t buy Out Louder simply on the merits of the musicians. I listened to the samples on Amazon.com first. What I heard wasn’t the sound of innovation — it was more like putting on a pair of comfortable sneakers. The first several tunes on […]

JAZZBO NOTES ESSENTIAL RECORDING
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Filles De Kilimanjaro represents one of many transition points for Miles Davis. It marks the end of the 2nd great quintet with Wayne Shorter, Tony Williams, Ron Carter, and Herbie Hancock. It was the last date before the epochal In A Silent Way.
Miles had just married Betty Mabry, a young […]

JAZZBO NOTES HIGHLY RECOMMENDED RECORDING
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One of the best concerts I ever heard was Lonnie Smith at the now defunct 1369 Club in Cambridge Massachussetts in the early 80s. I remember him burning down the house playing cheesy tunes like Three Blind Mice with a pickup band of a drummer and a guitarist. I walked […]

JAZZBO NOTE RECOMMENDED RECORDING
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Let me start by stating the obvious: Screaming Headless Torsos is not for everyone. It’s a combination of flaming lead guitar, funk, metal, rap, and yodeling. Yes, yodeling.
I’m not going to lie to you. Dean Bowman, the nut who’s on vocals, can be downright irritating. I would have been happier if […]

JAZZBO NOTES HIGHLY RECOMMENDED RECORDING
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Listening to Next Best Western, the opening tune of Underground (released on the Sunnyside label), I couldn’t help but be reminded of Traveling Mercies, Potter’s previous studio date. That’s true even though his band is completely different. Performing in his bass-less quartet are guitarist Wayne Krantz, keyboardist Craig Taborn, and […]

JAZZBO NOTES HIGHLY RECOMMENDED RECORDING
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It’s hard to explain why Up All Night is a bit of a letdown.
Up All Night (on the Verve label) is the follow up to Uberjam, one of my favorite John Scofield records. Both feature the same band. As on Uberjam, Scofield uses modern R&B rhythms borrowed from hiphop as […]

DON’T BOTHER
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Okay, here’s a question for you. Imagine that you’ve come across a date you’ve never heard of before with the following personel: Jim Pepper on tenor, Larry Coryell on guitar, Steve Swallow on bass, Keith Jarrett on keys, and Bob Moses on drums. Would you be interested? Hell, yeah!
Sucker.
I’m always in favor of […]

DON’T BOTHER
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Tutu (on the Columbia label) barely counts as a Miles Davis album. More accurately, it’s a Marcus Miller date, with Davis being the principle soloist. Most of the instruments are played by Marcus Miller. All but one of the arrangements are by Marcus Miller. Six out of eight of the tunes were written […]