JAZZBO NOTES RECOMMENDED RECORDING
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Oftentimes, superstar groups don’t really live up to their billing — too many egos jostling for space. The same is true for double CDs. How many concepts really require 150 minutes of music? To some degree, the second truism applies to Miles From India.
The concept of Miles From India has several […]

JAZZBO NOTES RECOMMENDED RECORDING
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My guess is that Black Market is one of Joe Zawinul’s favorite Weather Report dates. Why? Well, it’s a major Third World groove machine which, judging by the interviews Zawinul has given over the years, seems to be his main priority. Another thing that Zawinul should be justifiably proud of: his […]

JAZZBO NOTES RECOMMENDED RECORDING
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During the Brecker Brothers’ first incarnation, the band was all about merging jazz with funk and R&B. With The Return Of The Brecker Brothers, the brothers widened their net to include African pop forms and Brazilian music. If you want to hear what the Brecker Brothers might have sounded like if […]

JAZZBO NOTES RECOMMENDED RECORDING
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Too often on recordings that attempt to fuse Brazilian rhythms with jazz, one or the other element tends to get shortchanged. Either the rhythms are overly simplistic, or the improvisations substitute scale running for substantive improv. To some extent, that’s the case with Samba Jazz In Black And White.
True, reed player […]

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I went to see the Realistic Orchestra on a lark, really. They were playing at Yerba Buena Gardens for free on a Saturday, and I happened to be in the area with my wife, shopping. I wasn’t even really planning to write a review, but I was fairly impressed.
The first thing that struck me […]

JAZZBO NOTES RECOMMENDED RECORDING
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When I got Bobby Broom’s new CD Plays For Monk in the mail, I was intrigued. As far as I know, he’s the only guitarist that’s done a date almost entirely made up of Monk compositions. And Broom was doing the date as a trio!
On the face of it, that’s pretty […]

JAZZBO NOTES RECOMMENDED RECORDING
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I have to admit, I was expecting great things of Eon. In his work with Lookout Farm, Richie Beirach was one of the most consistently innovative keyboardists of the 70s, incorporating ideas from 20th Century classical music into jazz, without sacrificing one iota of swing.
Eon also features the great rhythm […]

JAZZBO NOTES RECOMMENDED RECORDING
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Most of life’s surprises tend to not be all that great, but A Little Night Waltz is a definite exception.
Before A Little Night Waltz, I had never heard of pianist G. F. Mlely. My loss. The guy swings like mad, has impeccable phrasing and technique, and doesn’t really sound like […]

JAZZBO NOTES RECOMMENDED RECORDING
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On Freddie Hubbard’s previous date, Red Clay, he played a little bait and switch on the listeners. The first and last tunes were funk, but everything in between was advanced post bop, kind of like getting a dog to eat a pill by inserting it into a piece of steak. On […]

JAZZBO NOTES RECOMMENDED RECORDING
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The original Head On recording was one of those third-stream efforts that were intermittently attempted throughout the sixties and early seventies by the likes of Joe Zawinul and Miles Davis. The composer Bobby Hutcherson is working with here is the classically trained pianist Todd Cochran, who joins vibist Hutcherson, along with […]